Extempore
by ravenbard
Summary: Post season 5. Separated from the others, Pam and Tara have to navigate the labyrinth of tunnels that run under The Authority's headquarters. Sacrifices and split-second decisions force their hand as they overcome obstacles and battle their way to freedom. Question is, will they make it out "alive"?
1. Part I

**TITLE: **Extempore

**RATING: **M for mature themes, scenes of intimacy, language and graphic violence

**PAIRING: **Pam/Tara

**SYNOPSIS: **Post season 5. Separated from the others, Pam and Tara have to navigate the labyrinth of tunnels that run under The Authority's headquarters. Sacrifices and split-second decisions force their hand as they overcome obstacles and battle their way to freedom. Question is, will they make it out "alive"?

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own True Blood, nor do I have a substantial amount of funds so don't sue me. I'm just taking some of my favorite television characters for a spin.

**A/N**: In lieu of the upcoming sixth season, I thought I'd get y'all motivated for the season opener with this story because clearly, I am as good as staying away from this pairing as I am with chocolate chip cookies. For those who were less than pleased with the amount of angst I made them endure in my previous stories *cough* The Rift *cough*, you'll be happy to know that this one is angst light. Angst light but a little more gory. Enjoy and if you have a moment, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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**Part I**

Blood. It was everywhere. It slicked the walls in vicious slashes of crimson, coagulated and bubbled on the grimy floors and dripped like macabre stalactites from the ceilings.

And yet, despite being in a narrow, subterranean environment amidst all the undead biohazard, Pamela Sywnford de Beaufort still managed to find one unbloodied part of the wall to lean on.

The blonde's lanky body rested at a comfortable slant, her entire posture a study in nonchalance as she studied her nails with an air of feigned interest. Azure blue eyes raked over her now less than perfect manicure with a critical eye, Pam acting as though she didn't have a care in the world even as death and blood surrounded her.

A pained grunt made her raise her previously bowed head. The proud smirk that followed manifested unbidden on scarlet painted lips as Pam's electric blue gaze ran smack dab into the source of her pride.

Tara.

The vampire in question was currently engaged in brutal tussle with one of the Authority's henchmen. Pam watched as Tara faked a left then darted to the right, one arm whipping out to deliver a vicious uppercut to the guard's jaw. The sound of bones cracking echoed off the curved tunnel walls as Tara's knuckles hit home, causing the guard to spit with rage as his teeth slammed together and the bones in her jaw shattered.

The injury didn't deter the guard for long. As a vampire, such inflictions healed rapidly and the guard was already lunging after Tara before the blood on his lips had begun to cake. He swung a retaliating fist in turn, catching Tara neatly on the temple and sending her crashing into the nearby wall.

Tara winced as her head formed an impressive dent into the concrete, her brain feeling like it had been scrambled seven ways from Sunday. Stars fandangoed in front of her obsidian gaze but she shook it off and ducked the roundhouse kick to her chest, tucking and rolling off to the side.

"Come here, _bitch_," the guard snarled. He vamp sped to where Tara had rolled, picked her up by her hair and swung her bodily up to hit the ceiling. Bits of plaster and concrete rained down on the brawling pair as Tara smacked into the ceiling before falling back down into the guard's waiting arms. She managed a somersault midair as she descended, her booted feet connecting squarely with the guard's snarling face. The impact of her boots meeting the guard's face offset her balance and she landed less than gracefully on her hip, jarring her bones but a grim smile crawled across her face as the guard stumbled back, one hand reaching up to cup his concaved and rapidly bleeding nose.

"Fuckin' _cunt_!" the guard spat out, snapping his healing nose back into alignment and swiping away the trickle of blood that still oozed from his left nostril. "You'll pay for that."

"Oh, yeah?" Tara taunted as she sprung back onto her feet and began bouncing on the balls of them lightly. "Come and get me, big boy," she mocked, making a come hither motion.

The guard charged and Tara used his heavier weight and momentum to send him careening into the dark of the tunnel. There was a sickening crack as the guard's head connected with an overhead pipe but he recovered instantly, whirled around and was back in front of Tara in a flash.

Pam's eyes narrowed as Tara sidestepped a fraction too late and the guard managed to get the dark-skinned vampire into a deadly headlock. Tara was tucked none too gently under the guard's trunk of an arm, his bicep muscles bulging almost alarmingly against his black sweater as he set about tearing the younger vampire's head from her shoulders.

Tara suppressed the urge to scream in agony as she felt the muscles in her neck begin to shred. In her current position, there was only one way to play: fight dirty. She went slack in the guard's arms, cocked an elbow then slammed it home into the guard's groin. The resounding howl of fury that erupted from the guard's lips sent a satisfied smile to tug at Tara's lips. She wrenched herself away from the guard, stuck out a leg and kicked at the back of the still howling guard's knees. He fell, still cupping his damaged goods and Tara swooped down to snag the last, lone stake tucked to the guard's thigh. She was about to drive it home when the guard tucked and rolled, spinning around to lash out with a booted feet of his own. The tip of his boot caught Tara's hand, effectively knocking the stake out of her grip and sending a slew of expletives streaming out of Tara's mouth.

The guard leapt to his feet and Tara pounced on him, raining punches as she went and forcing him onto the defensive. So concentrated was Tara on her current opponent that she failed to sense a second threat that was slowly emerging from the shadows.

Pam did though and the glint of something silver whizzing through the darkness straight for Tara's heart was all the incentive Pam needed to drop her nonchalant act. She vamp speed forward, intercepting the spinning silver throwing knife by catching the object between her fingertips. Ignoring the fact that she caught it blade first and that the silver was now licking a scorching path across her skin, she sent it whizzing noisily back into the dark.

A dark smile crossed her lips as her superior hearing heard it slice into soft, vulnerable flesh. The pained gasp and choked gurgle that followed only served to fuel her bloodlust and Pam blurred forward into the shadows only to find a human guard clawing at his ruined throat.

"My, my, what a mess," Pam stated casually, slowing her pace to a languid crawl. She could hear the guard's heartbeat grow sluggish, felt the way his pulse worked overtime as adrenaline and fear poisoned his veins and reeked out from his pores. He backed away clumsily, blood loss and pain making him dizzy and upsetting his equilibrium. But from the predatory way Pam was eyeing him, the way those eyes burned with the promise of death, backing away seemed like the sensible thing to do.

Pam didn't let him go far. When the guard's back hit the wall, he whimpered, knowing he was cornered and trapped before a vampire who was currently oozing a dangerous aura of power and hatred.

Pam came to a stop in front of the slowly dying guard. Her eyes were hard as chips of ice, her expression incensed as she closed long fingers around the protruding handle of the knife. "You just tried to kill my progeny." Poisonous rage retched from every syllable and despite himself, the guard's knees knocked together even as he pressed himself flat against the wall. "For that, you will pay." Without further preamble, Pam yanked the knife sideways, tearing open a gaping wound in the guard's throat and sending an arterial spray of blood to explode outwards.

Pam blurred off to the side to avoid the vomit of crimson but some still anointed her face in misshapen flecks. Using her free hand, she swiped away the blood that stained her cheek, pulled out the knife from the ugly wound she had made across the guard's neck then kicked his cooling body off into a corner. She spared the crumpled body a disgusted glance, cleaned the knife on the side of her pants and tucked it into her boot.

Then she returned back to the melee that was Tara and the guard. Pam arrived in time to see the guard pick Tara up and throw her in the blonde's direction. A pale eyebrow arched as Tara skidded to a stop by her boots, her face bloodied and lips split.

"Having fun?" Pam drawled dryly as she stared down at her slightly worse for wear child.

Tara growled murderously as she scrambled back to her feet. "You _could_ help, ya know," was what she managed to grit out before blurring back up to the guard and sinking her fists into the soft expanse of his belly. Pained grunts followed the thuds that were Tara's fists hitting home as she once again got the upper hand.

"Oh, I think you're doin' _juuust_ fine, darlin'" Pam murmured as she returned to leaning against the wall, now uncaring of the unknown slimy substance her shoulder was resting on. Blue eyes locked onto Tara's beautiful fighting form, a small smile playing about her lips as Tara kicked the guard's feet out from under him, forcing him back-first onto the blood-stained floor. "Just fine," she repeated, her voice an octave lower than it had been seconds ago as she observed Tara straddle the guard and punch him square in the face.

Tara, busy rendering the guard's face into something that resembled ground up hamburger meat, barely registered what her maker had murmured in that husky, low drawl of hers. However, she didn't need audial confirmation, the bond answered her unspoken question by assaulting her with a frisson of lust so powerful and potent that the inner muscles between her legs instinctively clenched.

Tara looked over her shoulder, her fists never stopping even as she threw Pam an incredulous look. The dark-skinned vampire barely managed to catch Pam's unapologetic shrug and slight smirk before the guard performed a half sit-up and slammed his forehead into Tara's with such force that it not only snapped her head back but also forced her off his person.

Tara cursed as she was unseated from the guard's prone body, falling onto her haunches. She scrambled to her knees, in time to meet the guard's meaty fist as it collided with her face.

"Mother_fucker_!" was what Tara hissed out vehemently as her lips split open once again and blood burst forth from the open wounds.

The scent of more of Tara's blood saturating the air caused Pam's body to uncoil from its casual slant against the wall. Blue eyes were once again smoldering with wrath and vengeance as they locked onto the unfortunate soul that had dared spilled her progeny's blood in such a careless fashion. The blonde bent, fingers reaching for the handle of the knife she had procured from the other guard but before she could jump in to lend a helping hand, Tara was back on her feet.

The dark-skinned vampire ducked the swinging fist coming at her and blurred over to where the wooden stake lay forgotten in a puddle of goo and gristle. Her speedy gait caused her to slip and slide on the blood-slicked floor and she tumbled to the ground, skidding the rest of the way on her back. Her outstretched lithe fingers only barely managed to close around the rough object before the guard was towering over her. He lunged forward, fangs elongated over his snarling lips but Tara twisted beneath his imposing body, didn't bother to duck the next ruthless punch to her cheek that fractured her cheekbone and made her teeth rattle inside her head as she drove the stake home in his chest.

The guard froze mid-lunge as the stake's wooden tip pierced clean through his heart. Mouth agape, he tossed Tara a disbelieving glance before he combusted, raining blood, gristle and other undead biohazard parts onto the younger vampire.

"Oh, fuck me!" Tara's voice was all shades of disgusted as her arms became coated with leftover vampire, her front painted with crimson. Scowling angrily, she propped herself up against the wall and began shaking off as much of the guard as she could.

"What, here? Now?" Pam's dry drawl was in full force as she sauntered over to her blood-soaked progeny. She held out a chivalrous hand and simply grinned when Tara slapped it away before bracing herself against the wall to pull herself up. The grin turned into a full-blown smirk when Tara audibly growled at her, clearly displeased at her maker's amusement of her poor choice of words.

Pointedly ignoring her child's deadly glower, Pam reached out and picked a line of gristle from Tara's hair. "Now is neither the time nor place," she murmured throatily as she carelessly tossed away the piece of leftover vampire from her fingertips. At Tara's second threatening growl, she flashed her progeny another cocky grin. "However, if we manage to make it out of here alive, I'll be more than happy to oblige." A salacious leer followed her bold statement as sapphire blue eyes raked down Tara's body in a manner that was decidedly suggestive.

"Go fuck yourself," Tara muttered darkly stepping away from Pam's close proximity. She swiped an infuriated hand over her face, hoping to dispel the slime of blood she could feel coating her cheeks. She winced slightly when her rough touch jolted her still healing cheekbone and she ran the back of her hand more carefully across her face.

"Hot and horny becomes you, Tara Mae." Pam's voice had dropped registers, her naturally husky cadence reduced to a seductive rasp. She stared at Tara then, cerulean blue eyes seeking out orbs of onyx and locking onto them with steely intent.

When Pam was sure she had all of Tara's undivided attention, she took a purposeful step forward, then another, forcing Tara to back up until her back was flush against the wall. Pam smiled, a smile that was all kinds of wicked and just a tad sinful. She leaned in until her lips almost brushed Tara's ear, a ripple of satisfaction coursing through her end of the bond when she heard Tara's breath hitch.

"I'll be more than happy to give you a show," she purred quietly, a smirk crawling across her lips as Tara shuddered beneath her. She dropped a proprietary hand onto Tara's shoulder, brushed a thumb across her clavicle then trailed deliberately slow fingers down Tara's arm before coming to rest on Tara's hip. Eyes never leaving Tara's, Pam gave a possessive squeeze at the flesh she found there, eyes darkening with desire as she caught the way Tara visibly gulped. "But as I said, now is not the time for me to fuck you into oblivion."

Tara's entire lithe frame trembled in wake of Pam's promise and she allowed herself a moment to indulge in the white-hot streaks of want and need pulsating through the bond before reaching up to push her maker away. "You're cocky as fuck, is what you are," Tara retorted derisively over a raggedly exhaled breath. She couldn't deny that Pam's words were fanning the embers of lust within her into hot tongues of fire but she was damned if she was going to go all starry-eyed and weak-kneed given their current dangerous situation.

Therefore, instead of continuing to engage in a verbal battle with her maker, Tara widened the distance between their bodies in a pitiful attempt to cool the incendiary inferno between her legs. She blatantly ignored the triumphant smirk on Pam's face as she scanned her surroundings with a critical eye. Seeing only one viable exit route, she took off down the shadowy tunnel, intentionally disregarding the way Pam's heated blue stare came to rest on her behind.

Maker and progeny were silent as they followed the poorly lit and sometimes completely dark winding underground tunnel, their boots making no noise against the ground. When they came to a stop in front of what looked like a crossroads of sorts, they took a moment to assess this new development in their escape route.

Before them lay three options: they could go in three directions, straight, left or right.

Tara cocked her head, her mahogany gaze flitting from one option to another. She was also sniffing the air for any potential threats; stepping out from their tunnel path would put them directly in the middle of the space where all four tunnel mouths met, making them instant targets. The bright overhead light would also only serve to make them more visible.

Behind Tara, Pam had grown incredibly tense, her playful and shameless flirting disintegrating into nothingness in wake of alarm bells ringing noisily in the back of her mind. She made a move to order her progeny not to do anything rash but Tara, not sensing any immediate danger, shrugged and stepped out into the harshly lit space.

Tara only had time to wince slightly as the harsh, bright overhead light assaulted her eyes and lit up her lithe frame like red on a target board before her presence set off a cacophony of bullets that spat with deadly precision at her from the left…

**TBC**


	2. Part II

**A/N –** Thanks to all that left a review; always nice to hear what y'all thought. So what about that True Blood sneak peek huh? I think I yo-yo'd between "omfg, that's so HOT!" and "omfg, they're back to fighting already?!" the second I saw that almost slap. These two are seriously giving me a complex. *laughs* Anyway, here is the next chapter. Oh, in keeping with HBO's True Blood's serialized format, each chapter _will_ end on a cliffhanger. FYI, 'k? I'm not doing it to torture y'all…much. *grins* Happy reading.

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**Part II**

Tara contorted her body sideways in a vain attempt to duck the hail of bullets but before she managed a half-twist, a firm hand whipped out and grabbed for the back of her jacket, yanking her bodily back into the protective cover of darkness.

"You stupid _bitch_!" Pam's voice dripped with rage as she shoved Tara up against the wall. One alabaster hand gripped the front of Tara's shirt, lean fingers wrinkling the material as cerulean blue eyes darkened to the color of slate. The blonde glared angrily at the younger vampire. "You just gave away our cover!"

Tara gulped, Pam's livid expression sparking off a wave of guilt that thudded down her end of the bond. She opened her mouth, an apology poised and ready on the tip of her tongue but Pam cut her off.

"Don't speak," Pam barked, her eyes boring dangerously into remorseful obsidian pools. "You are a goddamn _vampire_," she hissed, pressing Tara harder against the mildewed and slightly slimy wall. "Make use of the superior senses I have so graciously bestowed upon you."

Tara nodded, her body plaint beneath Pam's, a physical gesture of her surrender and acknowledgement of her foolishness. "I'm sorry," she whispered softly, hoping to convey her regret with a simple apology.

Pam glowered at her, anger still wafting off her in palpable waves. Then, she sighed, pale fingers loosening their hold on Tara's shirt though she didn't move away. Arctic blue eyes lasered into unflinching mahogany orbs as maker and progeny simply observed each other.

Tara did not know what was going through the blonde's head at that precise moment but the way Pam kept looking at her was starting to make her squirm. The blonde's cobalt blue gaze was unreadable, her maker's end of the bond muted as Pam simply stared at her, their bodies flush against each other.

Pam in turn, could feel Tara's confusion, felt the nudge of uncertainty pulsing down from her progeny's end of the bond. The blonde had to acknowledge that her irrational anger at Tara had stemmed from the fact that she had very nearly lost her progeny mere moments ago. She sighed again and was about to step away when something caught the corner of her eye.

"Let me see." With a gentleness that neither party knew the blonde was capable of showing, Pam reached up and tenderly grasped Tara's chin, turning it sideways to reveal two fading pink lines that marred Tara's otherwise flawless ebony-hued skin. For such superficial wounds to heal so slowly, the blonde concluded that the bullets that grazed Tara's cheek were crafted from silver. Crimson dots peppered the previously wounded area, marking Tara's ebony cheek like lines of Morse code. Pam stared at the spot, blue eyes welded to the scarlet drops, her expression almost transfixed.

"Pam?" Tara's voice was like a gunshot going off in the otherwise silent tunnel. She tried to turn her head back around but her maker's grip tightened on her chin, alabaster fingers digging slightly into the sides of her jaw. "I'm okay," the younger vampire continued in a subdued tone, guilt and shame coursing through her veins as she felt a ping of grief from Pam.

Pam made a disparaging noise in her throat that somehow tapered off into a growl, causing tension to escalate between them until it was like a thick, palpable stew in the air. Then, without any warning, the blonde leaned in and _licked_ away the remnants of blood speckled across Tara's cheek. Each lick was subsequently followed by a barely-there kiss, Pam's bee-stung lips feather-light against soft ebony flesh.

Tara's body, already at a slow, steady burn thanks to her maker's close proximity, felt her blood reach an almost unbearable boil the second Pam's tongue touched her cheek. Eyes instantly hooding in response to the fiery ache blossoming between her legs, Tara's hands shot down to grip at Pam's hips, instinctively pulling her maker closer to her as Pam continued to lave attention to her now healed injury with her lips and tongue.

"Pam…" Tara's voice was ragged as Pam pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek, her cool breath tickling her flesh.

Pam responded by dropping another butterfly kiss to the side of Tara's face. Lips dragged themselves up to Tara's temple before moving back down to graze the side of her jaw. Pale fingers went slack against Tara's chin as Pam trailed the down the column of an ebony throat. She played the pads of her fingers across Tara's clavicle before perching them on Tara's shoulder, her lips never wavering as they dropped kiss after feather-light kiss on Tara's cheek.

Tara exhaled a shaky breath as Pam moved to nibble at her earlobe. Unconsciously, she widened her stance, dark fingers flexing against the blonde's hips. Pam's thigh sliding in between her newly parted thighs was not a coincidence.

"The things I want to do you," Pam murmured into Tara's ear before placing a soft kiss to its shell. Her voice was several octaves past her usual low rasp, rich with a huskiness that conjured up long hours in an arousal scented room of slow burning candles and satin sheets. The blonde murmured something unintelligible causing Tara to quake. Then, she moved to nuzzle her nose into Tara's sable hair, greedily inhaling the scent of musk and cloves lurking beneath the stench of dried blood that stained parts of Tara's body.

"P-Pam," Tara stuttered. She gripped harder at the flesh she found beneath her fingertips, arched her neck to allow her maker more access then moaned lowly when she heard Pam protract her fangs and run its needle-sharp tips over her jugular. Her own sharp incisors shot out of their sheaths, nicking her full bottom lip and beading the pillow-y flesh with scarlet.

"What do you want, Tara?" Pam breathed out seductively as she ghosted her fangs over the vulnerable flesh of Tara's throat. She pressed a firm kiss to the hollow of Tara's throat, licked at the skin she found beneath her mouth and let her progeny's unique scent filter into her taste buds.

Earthy. Spicy. A lingering strand of sweetness.

Pam bit playfully at the juncture between Tara's neck and shoulder before she used her nose to nudge aside the collar of Tara's jacket. "What do you want?" she murmured into dark flesh, her voice slightly distorted as she spoke around a kiss. "Tell me."

Tara gasped as Pam nudged her thigh more snugly between Tara's legs, a gasp that flared into a needy moan as the blonde pressed upwards, immediately igniting an inferno at the apex of the younger vampire's thighs. Ebony-hued fingers clutched at Pam's hips, pulling her maker even closer to her as Pam licked a path up Tara's neck.

"I-I want…" Tara couldn't finish the sentence, Pam robbing her of speech and coherent thought with every new lick and kiss. Moisture pooled in almost embarrassing quantities between her legs as Pam pulled back to reveal glaucous tinged eyes that were hooded dangerously with arousal.

"Yesss?" Pam purred as she inched her head forward until their lips were only a hairsbreadth apart. She grinned wickedly as Tara grinded down on her thigh, desperation and frustration scorching a path through the bond. "What do you want, Tara Mae?" Pam asked one final time, her voice now at a register that was decidedly appropriate only for the bedroom. Smoky blue eyes locked onto blown and aroused chips of obsidian as Pam waited patiently for an answer.

Tara opened her mouth her mouth to speak, ready to beg Pam to take her right then and there up against that grimy tunnel wall. Self-control and self-possession were two qualities that had completely escaped Tara in wake of Pam's close proximity and the way the blonde was applying minute pressure to the aching moist feminine flesh between her thighs.

Her maker's name had barely begun to form on her lips when the sound of multiple booted feet ricocheting off the tunnel walls caused the pair to spring apart.

Pam reacted with a vicious snarl, whirling around so quickly that her curled flaxen strands whipped Tara in the face as she pushed her progeny behind her.

Tara, never one to run from a fight, no matter how dismal the odds, came out from behind Pam to flank her right. She ignored the way Pam glared holes into the side of her head as she cocked her head, listening to the sound of approaching foes.

Consternation was written all over Pam's face as she reached out and tapped impatiently at her progeny's shoulder. The blonde waited until Tara slid a midnight glance her way then held up four fingers between them. Upon Tara's grim nod, Pam began a silent countdown.

Four.

Pam and Tara picked up low snatches of conversation as their assailants marched determinedly in their direction.

Three.

Pam zeroed in on the fact that her enhanced hearing allowed her to make out for distinct heartbeats, each beating to its own unique rhythms.

'Humans,' the blonde thought savagely to herself as she balled her free hand into a tight fist. 'Easy pickings.'

Two.

Tara took note of the fact that the approaching footsteps seemed to echo as one even though her vampiric hearing could pick each distinct footstep apart via its owner's weight distribution. 'Close formation,' the younger vampire mused, making a mental note. 'Possibly walking in pairs, one behind the other.'

Anticipation flared through Pam's end of the bond followed by a blistering streak of caution, causing Tara to look at her maker. Pam's remaining digit was half crooked, her azure blue eyes seeking out fathomless pools of pitch. A dozen unspoken words passed between maker and progeny as they waited for Pam to drop that final countdown.

One.

They moved in unison, one pale streak darting out from the dark of the tunnel followed closely by a dark blur.

The guards didn't even know what hit them.

Blood splashed the walls, painting it a dark, rich crimson as Pam and Tara took out the first pair, simultaneously ripping out their throats before throwing the deceased guards off to the side. The next pair were quick to react to their fallen comrades, trigger-happy fingers letting loose a series of bullets that strafed in Pam and Tara's direction.

The vampires split up, blurring to either side of each guard to avoid the spray of bullets.

Pam reached her quarry first. She yanked the semi-automatic from the human guard's hands, spun it around then cold-cocked him mercilessly over the head with the butt of the gun. She brought the weapon down so hard onto the side of his head that it left a notable indentation in his skull. The guard dropped wordlessly to the ground, brain matter leaking out from the crack in his head to join the blood that seeped from that fatal wound. Pam followed his descent, one hand gripping a handful of chestnut brown hair to yank his head sideways before she bore down on his exposed neck fangs first.

Tara's initial actions mirrored Pam's as she wrenched the Glock 17 from the guard's firm grip. However, instead of turning it onto its previous owner, Tara simply slammed her forehead into the guard's face even as she tucked her newly procured weapon into the back of her pants. The guard stumbled back, cursing in a language Tara didn't recognize but the younger vampire had to give him credit as he recovered fast enough to attempt to swing a fist at her.

Tara sidestepped the punch with practiced ease. "Ooh, a swing and a miss!" she jibed. She blurred aside again as the guard lashed out a powerful side kick meant to concave the ribs in her chest, grabbed the extended limb by the ankles then used her hold to swing the guard into the wall. The guard hit the tunnel wall with enough force to cause a hairline fracture to spider-web up to the ceiling but he shook it off valiantly and charged at Tara once again.

Tara heaved a resigned sigh as she moved away from the guard's trajectory and shoved at his shoulder, her push combined with his fast moving momentum sending him careening face-first into the opposite wall. Something crunched nastily as the guard smacked bodily into the wall and a low groan of pain followed as the guard slumped to the ground.

"It's not nice to play with your food, Tara." Pam's Southern drawl was muffled as she continued feasting on her own meal. She pulled back long enough to bestow upon Tara a long suffering glance. "Finish him off already," she commanded before returning to suckle at the dead man's neck.

Tara rolled her eyes at Pam but didn't miss a beat as she blurred forward, hauled the guard to his shaky feet then clapped two hands on either side of his head, effectively snapping his neck. Before the guard's body could crumble unceremoniously back to the ground, however, Tara dropped fang and sank them savagely into his jugular vein. She felt her teeth and fangs break through skin and muscle, sinking deeper into wet flesh until there was a pop and warm liquid settled onto her tongue. Blood spurted from the twin puncture wounds as Tara pulled her fangs out before sinking them back in, almost purring in gratification as she began pulling deep mouthfuls of blood down into her mouth.

Silence once again reclaimed the its dominion over the tunnels, disturbed only by soft suckling noises emanating from both Pam and Tara as they recharged themselves.

Tara pulled away first, her thirst as a young vampire resulting in her draining her victim much more ruthlessly and quickly than Pam. Blood smeared her mouth and stained her lips as she licked almost absentmindedly at them. She dropped the exsanguinated body uncaringly to the ground, a satisfied expression masking the features of her face.

Next to her, Pam was finishing her meal with a little more grace and etiquette. When she retracted her fangs from the side of the dead guard's neck, only a few splatters of blood dotted the skin around her mouth. She thumbed them away, kicking the body away from her feet as she suckled the last remnants of blood from her fingertip.

"Humans," Pam spat out in a repulsed tone. "Useless, fuckin' cattle." She tossed the deceased guard a disgusted look then bent to pick up the discarded semi-automatic. Checking its ammunition, she then sauntered over to the dead body and started patting it down for other weapons.

"I was human," Tara pointed out quietly as she too began relieving her own dead body of its weapons. She retrieved two magazine clips from the guard's vest and slid them into her jacket pocket. Next, she unbuckled the stake thigh holster from the guard's leg and strapped it around her thigh. Securing the two stakes snugly against the side of her leg, she straightened and turned to find Pam staring at her with an unreadable expression.

For a long moment, neither spoke. Then Pam roused herself by swinging the semi-automatic rifle over her shoulder. "You're not anymore," the blonde reminded Tara in an even tone. She reached down to reseat the knife still tucked into her boot then straightened. Blue eyes were flat and unyielding at they came to rest on Tara's face. "Remember that."

Without another word, Pam took off in the direction the guards had come from, trusting Tara to follow.

Tara remained stock still for scant seconds, a midnight gaze watching Pam's retreating figure with an inscrutable expression of her own. When the darkness of the dimly lit tunnel almost swallowed her maker whole, Tara forced herself to snap out of it as she compelled her feet to move.

Tara had barely taken three steps when Pam came hurtling back out of the darkness, her body thrown at such an inhuman speed that she was only a blur as she sailed through the air. Tara reacted with an unconscious instinctiveness, hands outstretched and feet firmly planted into the ground as she sought to catch her maker's flying body. However, when Pam collided bodily with Tara, the force of her weight descending upon her progeny not only caused two of Tara's ribs to snap but also upset her equilibrium.

The pair fell in tandem, sliding backwards into the harshly lit space that made up the tunnel crossroads.

Tara gripped at Pam's waist and ignoring the jarring stabs of pain resonating through her chest as her ribs began to knit themselves back together, she pulled a stunned looking Pam up into a sitting position between her legs. "Are you okay?" she asked worriedly, ebony hands traveling anxiously down Pam's sides, seeking for any bumps and bruises her maker may have sustained.

Before Pam could offer a viable answer however, an enraged roar erupted from the shadowy end of the tunnel sending chills down Tara's spine. The sound was awful, a disastrous combination of sheer, unadulterated rage and wounded animal. Fear licked at the bunched nerves at the base of Tara's spine as she pulled a still dazed Pam closer to her. Mahogany eyes widened dramatically, her expression morphing into one of stupefied horror as the source of the inhuman roar stepped into the light…

**TBC**


	3. Part III

**A/N –** I took some liberties in regards to what creatures there may be in the True Blood universe. But hey, if there are vampires and werewolves and shifters and telepathic waitresses there can be other things that go bump in the night, right? Happy reading and have a good weekend.

* * *

**Part III**

"What the actual _fuck_ is that?!" Tara hissed in a panicked tone as she scooted further back away from the advancing creature, pulling Pam along with her. Twin orbs of midnight were imitating that of a deer caught in the headlights as they latched onto creature lurching towards them. When Tara's back hit a wall, she struggled to her feet, forcing Pam to hers as well.

The creature that lumbered towards them looked like some sort of humanoid/animal hybrid. Standing well over six feet tall, the creature was a walking block of muscle, every square inch of it bulging with a rippling musculature that made it look like a the poster child for steroids. It was its face though, that gave it away as being something less than human. Glowing yellow eyes with inky-black slits for irises glared out at them from a misshapen face that was heavily scarred and garnished with ridges and bumps. Accompanying those ghastly eyes were two pairs of fangs that protruded from its upper lip, one pair slightly longer than the other, both glistening with saliva.

The creature snarled at them and as it moved closer, Tara fought the urge to gag as the overpowering stench of putrid eggs and sulfur busied the air around them. She pulled Pam urgently behind her, using her body as a physical shield as the creature continued to lumber forward.

"Demon," Pam muttered, shaking away the cobwebs that clouded her head. The creature had clocked her a good one and she was still feeling the effects of its meaty paw connecting with all the grace and force of a freight train against her temple.

"What?" Tara's voice had reached a decibel that was decidedly unnatural, so high-pitched it was. Terror oozed off the younger vampire in waves, adding to the already repugnant atmosphere that coated the tunnels.

"Demon!" Pam croaked hoarsely into a nearby ebony ear, finally recovering from the unsavory blow to her head. She tugged frantically at the back of Tara's jacket as the creature raised a fist that looked like one of those oversized dumbbells. A dumbbell that was lined with savage looking claws.

"Duck, Tara!" Pam yelled as the creature swung his meaty fist in their direction. Pam threw Tara to the left even as she tucked and rolled to the right. The blonde changed trajectory mid-roll, twisting her body back towards the creature and snapping out a leg only for the heel of her boot to connect violently with its shin. Something splintered beneath her boot and Pam smiled viciously as the creature howled in agony.

"Pam!"

The vampire in question looked up. She caught sight of Tara blurring behind the creature, watched her progeny slide feet first like she was at a baseball game to where her semi-automatic lay discarded in a shadowy corner, the weapon having been dislodged from her person as she was thrown unceremoniously through the air.

The second Tara's fingers closed around cool metal, she hurled in her maker's direction, trusting Pam's vampiric reflexes to catch the weapon.

Pam caught the sailing semi-automatic with ease, her fingers daintily plucking it from the air. Pale fingers closed around the weapon, a finger automatically landing on the trigger and she began squeezing off a deadly and precise round straight at the creature towering before her.

The creature screamed, an awful sound that pierced unpleasantly at Tara's eardrums. She ran back towards the melee, opening fire on the creature's back as she ran. To her utter dismay, their silver and wooden bullets didn't seem to affect the demon at all and as Tara came to a stop within touching distance of the creature, she noticed that as quickly as the demon was being strafed with round after round of bullets, its body just as quickly spat them out, along with a sickly yellow-green ooze that was most likely its blood.

"It's not working!" Tara shouted in frustration as she reloaded, ejecting and tossing aside the empty magazine clip only to smack a new one in place. The younger vampire didn't have time to open fire, however, because the demon suddenly pivoted, turning its attention onto Tara. It lunged at her, lips pulled back into an ugly snarl and Tara suppressed the urge to scream as its claws raked across her shoulder, ripping through her leather jacket and shirt only to score deep grooves into her flesh.

"Tara!" Pam was on her feet the second she felt that blinding white-hot flash of agonizing pain sear through the bond from Tara's end. Pam squeezed off another round at the retreating demon's back, plugging the lumbering creature with bullets. She chewed off a litany of violent curses as her eyes bore witness to the way the bullets leeched back out from the entrance wounds. "Fuck!" she growled even as she continued to fire into the apparently indestructible creature.

Tara clapped a hand to her bleeding shoulder, trying to staunch the blood even as the creature continued to advance on her. It eyed her in a manner that made her want to tuck tail and run but she wouldn't. Not when Pam's life was in just as much danger as her own. Girding her mental loins, she changed tactics, tucking the Glock back into her pants and resorting to hand-on-hand combat.

Tara's punches came hard and fast as she put vampiric strength and speed behind each precise blow. Satisfaction coursed through her as the demon's hefty weight forced it to stumble back. It wasn't above retaliation though and Tara gritted her teeth against the pain as the demon slash three claws across her face, the wounds so deep that it revealed the white of bone beneath her flesh.

Behind the demon, Pam was still firing and she continued to fire until her ammunition ran out. Needing to reload, she ducked to side, allowing Tara to take point as she hastily loaded her one and only magazine into the semi-automatic. An agonized scream made her heart jump into her throat and she looked up just in time to see Tara complete an impressive flying roundhouse kick to the demon's face only for its putrid yellow-green blood to spurt forth from its split lips and onto Tara.

Pam felt the bottom of her stomach drop out as smoke began emanating from Tara's face and arms, the acrid stench of burning flesh assaulting her nostrils. She completed her reload at vamp speed then blurred over to Tara, pausing only to kick the demon's legs out from under it before pulling her progeny into a shadowy corner and buying them precise scant seconds of time.

"What the fuck happened?!" Pam growled over the crashing sound of the demon's body hitting the ground, snarling and growling as it went. The blonde's cerulean blue eyes darkened dangerously as she reached for Tara's face only for her progeny to recoil like Pam had struck her.

"Don't touch me," Tara gritted out from between clenched teeth. "Its blood is like fuckin' acid or some shit," she informed Pam brusquely as the blonde once again tried to reach for her.

Pam swore as slate colored eyes assessed Tara's charred and smoking cheek, the deep furrows spewing out blood in her other cheek as well as the melted and bubbling flesh on the backs of Tara's hands and upper arms where the demon's blood had gnawed through her red leather jacket. Not knowing what else to do and knowing that they were wasting precious seconds, Pam brought her wrist to her mouth, dropped fang and bit down viciously. She tore twin ragged lines across her wrist, ripping open vein and flesh.

"Drink," the blonde commanded, shoving her bleeding wrist against Tara's mouth, giving her progeny no choice but to obey.

Tara took two healthy pulls of Pam's sweet blood, enough to speed up the injuries she sustained but before she could take another, a clawed hand snapped out from the dark and yanked Pam bodily away from Tara.

"PAM!" Tara cried out as she heard the resounding thud of her maker's body slamming into a nearby wall.

"Cut off its head!" came the garbled reply.

"What?!" Tara ducked the fist that came dangerously close to smashing into her face then rammed her fist viciously into the soft part of the demon's belly. Her maneuver proved useless; it was like putting her fist through Jell-O, viscous, dense Jell-O that wobbled beneath her knuckles, absorbing the impact of Tara's punch without fatal consequence.

Except for further pissing off the demon of that is.

The creature roared in rage, picked Tara up and flung her further into one of the tunnels, spitting curses as she went.

"Cut. Off. Its. Goddamn. _Head_!" Pam yelled as a light went off in her mind and she recollected the crucial piece of information needed for killing demons.

"And how the _fuck_ am I supposed to that?" Tara hollered back, her voice all shades of agitated as she picked herself up, shook away the stars that fandangoed in front of her eyes then resumed trading blows with the creature.

"Improvise!" Pam spat out as she hoisted the gun against her shoulder, trained it at the demon's veiny and bulging neck then squeezed off a deadly round.

Tara was quick to catch on. Jumping into the air, she launched herself feet first at the demon, used the momentum of both her boots striking the demon's wide chest to propel herself into a backwards flip. As she spun through the air, she reached for her gun, opening fire at the demon's neck as she landed with a cat-like grace on her feet.

The demon screamed, the sounds echoing off the narrow tunnel walls and assaulting both Tara and Pam's ears like nails on a chalkboard. Bits of its flesh were being flayed off as both vampires continued to bombard its neck with relentless bullets. The creature was still hunkering over Tara but Pam's relentless onslaught on it was making it second guess which vampire it should go after first.

Pam inadvertently made the decision for it when she ran out of ammunition. The creature pivoted and slammed its fist into Pam's stomach, the blonde once again sailing through the air, blood retching from her lips as her insides became pulverized. As her back smacked carelessly into the wall, she slid down it, face scrunched up in agony as she coughed up the blood that had leaked into places in her body it had no business being in.

Tara felt her maker's pain, felt the bond choke with Pam's hurt and it only served to fuel her determination and rage. She took off at a run, sprinting headlong into the demon's path, shooting as she went. The demon snarled at her but before it could swipe her with its claws, Tara jumped into the air, tossed her gun aside, grabbed for the overhead pipe and used it to swing herself forward, feet first. Her boots connected with the demon's face, both Pam and Tara's bullets doing enough damage for her kick to loosen the flesh and muscle that held the demon's head to its body.

Tara wrapped her legs around the demon's neck, ignoring Pam's warning shout as the demon raked its claws down her back. Pain flared through her as the creature's razor-sharp claws tore through her jacket to open the skin on her back but Tara worked through the loud aria of pain. She grabbed for the stake strapped to her thigh, slammed into the side of the demon's neck then proceeded to repeatedly stab and tear through sinew, muscle and bone. When the demon's head was half hanging off, Tara stuck the stake into its shoulder, grabbed the demon's head between both her hands and pulled with all the strength she had left in her.

There was the terrible sound of ripping flesh, followed by a wet plop and a pain-filled shriek as the gaping wound that Tara made in the demon's neck vomited sickly yellow-green blood all over the younger vampire. It sluiced down Tara's arms, splashed her face and seared her neck.

The now headless demon's body jerked spasmodically, motor functions ceasing to exist as the body swayed on the spot before pitching forward. Tara barely had time to dislodge herself from the demon's shoulders as the headless body fell, gravity aiding its heavy weight as it descended inevitably to the ground.

Tara attempted a tuck and roll but she was so blinded by the pain gnawing at her nerves and the demon's blood eating away at her flesh that she crashed shoulder-first to the ground, dislocating it and fracturing her clavicle.

"Tara!" Still clutching at her stomach, Pam ran to her fallen progeny, pausing only to savagely kick at the demon's head like one would a soccer ball. Reaching the younger vampire, Pam couldn't stop the horrified gasp that escaped unbidden from her lips as she took in the sight of Tara's mangled body.

Blood leeched in dark crimson streaks from her back, the demon's claws raking through her flesh so deeply that parts of her spine was exposed. Her hands were unrecognizable, the flesh that covered it all but melted off. Bits of ebony-hued skin on her cheeks and throat were similarly smoking and bubbling as the demon's blood ate away at it. Her right arm hung limply at her side, the bone being ripped mercilessly from its socket rendering the appendage useless.

"Jesus fuckin' _Christ_, Tara," Pam whispered more harshly than she intended as she pulled the younger vampire carefully onto her lap, careful not to jar her own still healing internal injuries. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"That I did good?" Tara flashed a cheeky grin up at Pam though it presented itself more of a grimace as the act pulled at her acid-eaten flesh on her cheek. "Fuck, that hurts," she mumbled, half-delusional from the pain lurching through her body.

"Reckless, petulant, _child_," Pam hissed vehemently as she glared angrily down at Tara. Tara simply shrugged her good shoulder in turn causing Pam to roll her eyes. "I'm going to pop your shoulder back in," Pam warned as she settled pale fingers gingerly against Tara's dislocated shoulder.

"Go for it," Tara mumbled again, her voice slurring together as she fought to stay conscious. She braced herself but couldn't stop the agonized scream that burst forth out of her mouth as Pam popped the bone back into its socket. "FUCK!" Tara screamed as her arm tingle with fresh notes of pain. "Mother_fucker_, that hurts!"

"Shh," Pam soothed. She let her fangs drop with a subtle click, tore open her wrist once more then held it against Tara's mouth. "Drink," she instructed the prone vampire softly.

Tara latched onto Pam's weeping wrist, her eyes almost rolling to the back of her head as her maker's blood starburst onto her tongue and slid down her throat like well-aged wine. Traces of Pam's unique scent spiked her blood and Tara couldn't help but suck down harder as she tried to isolate each unique flavor that was Pam.

Honeysuckle. Lavender. A hint of vanilla.

"Mmm," Tara mumbled as she closed a newly healed hand over Pam's forearm. Her body was slack where it lay across Pam's lap, mind hazing over with ecstasy as she drew more of her maker's blood into her mouth.

"Enough," Pam murmured though her features were regretful as she eased her wrist away from Tara's cocoa lips. Rubbing her own blood over the ragged lines her fangs had made over her wrist, Pam waited until they closed before she tongued away the last traces of blood that marred her alabaster skin. Done, she turned her attention onto Tara, first tugging off her acid-eaten, claw-shredded jacket then checked her progeny for any residual evidence of injuries. She sighed with patent relief when she found that Tara's back had reverted back to its flawless smoothness beneath her blood-stained tank top as had her hands, face and neck. She trailed a lone finger over Tara's previously fractured clavicle, noted that the bone had reknitted back into alignment then rotated the arm that Tara had dislocated moments ago.

"Don't hurt no more," Tara said softly as Pam continued to reassure herself that her progeny was in one piece with her roaming eyes and hands.

"Don't pull such a dumbass stunt like that again," Pam growled fiercely as she released Tara's arm. She scowled down at Tara when the younger vampire chuckled in a resigned fashion. "I mean it."

"I make no promises," Tara remarked cockily but her face sobered when Pam's expression didn't change. "You were hurt," she reminded the blonde in a tone that brooked no argument. "I did what I had to do."

Pam looked down at Tara, blue eyes flashing dangerously but when Tara returned her enraged glower with an unflinching, steady gaze of her own, Pam felt her resolve waver. She sighed then; let a pale hand rest on Tara's cheek, caressing the smooth skin before reaching down to brush her lips against Tara's. "I always knew you were going to be a handful," she murmured against Tara's mouth, a smile of her own tugging at her lips when she felt Tara grin. She kissed Tara again, a simple brush of lips against lips but when Tara finally took the initiative to sit up and straddle Pam's legs, the kiss deepened until both parties were moaning and panting into each other's mouths.

"Tara," Pam husked as she turned her head to deposit kisses down the side of the younger vampire's jaw. "Tara." The blonde's voice was equal parts aroused and terrified even as she continued planting kisses up Tara's cheek.

"I'm here," Tara returned softly, feeling Pam's fear like a jolt of lightning through the bond. She buried a hand into curled blonde hair, cupped the back of Pam's head and used her hold to reunite their lips.

For a few blissful minutes, both maker and progeny reveled in each other, taking the time to let their hands, lips and tongues reassure their troubled minds that the other was okay and alive, so to speak.

Tara sighed into Pam's mouth as she felt her maker's hands inched under her tank top then roam up her back, its movements less to incite arousal and more to reassure Pam that her progeny was indeed alright.

'_Safe_,' Pam thought, as her fingers continued to map out a mental blueprint of the musculature of Tara's back.

_Safe. Whole. Mine._

Pam flinched slightly as the last thought crept unbidden to the forefront of her mind. She then tensed in the circle of Tara's arms, now terrified more than ever of what she was coming to feel for the woman in front of her. The blonde trembled slightly when Tara turned her head to press a soothing kiss to her cheek, having felt her maker's turmoil through the bond. Cocoa lips lingered against soft skin, intermittently dropping sporadic kisses until Pam relaxed back into her touch.

"Pam…" Tara murmured softly. She pressed another fleeting kiss to Pam's cheek, reached up and brushed ebony fingers up Pam's neck. "Pamela…"

A whisper of a sigh escaped Pam as she heard her full name escape past Tara's lips for the first time. She tilted her head, grazed a kiss to the side of Tara's jaw then buried her head into the nook of Tara's neck.

For long moments, they stayed in each other's embrace, needing the closeness, treasuring each other's presence, each other's touch.

Pam had just snuck a hand under the hem of the front of Tara's shirt, pale fingers barely skimming over prominent abdominal muscles when suddenly, a deep ominous rumble caused cracks to streak alongside the walls and plaster to rain from the ceiling. Another low distant grumble followed and Pam looked up just in time to see all the lights that lit the tunnels wink out…

**TBC**


	4. Part IV

**A/N** – Thanks to everyone who left me a wonderful review; I'm glad y'all are having a ball. A word of caution: heavy descriptions of violence and gore prevail in this chapter so FYI. I'm a _Hostel_ and _Martyrs_ viewing, _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ and _Saw_ watching kinda person so my gore tolerance is quite high. Not sure where the rest of you guys stand though. So, I thought I'd warn you. Happy reading.

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**Part IV**

Tara growled audibly as they were plunged in total darkness, her growls so loud and fierce that Pam felt the vibrations of it emanating from her progeny's chest into her own.

"Easy," Pam soothed, placing a steady hand on Tara's tense shoulder. "It's not close by though I don't know which short bus _idiot_ decided that using grenades in such a structurally unsound environment was a good idea."

Tara huffed out a laugh as she climbed off Pam's lap. "We should go," she informed her maker quietly, her mirth a brief fleeting moment of reprieve that the engulfing darkness stole just as quickly as it passed Tara's lips. Tara held out a hand, knowing that with their vampiric eyesight, they could see just as clearly as they could when the tunnels were still lit but wanting, _needing_ to exact gallantry on behalf of her maker.

Pam heard the despondency in Tara's voice, felt the wash of despair trickle past Tara's defenses into the bond. She gripped Tara's hand, allowed the younger vampire to pull her to her feet then reached out to cup Tara's cheek. "Hey," she began in a gentle tone. When Tara cut her eyes away from her, bond thrumming with shame, Pam gently but firmly turned Tara's head back towards her. "Look at me," she demanded softly. When Tara turned an endless midnight gaze onto her, she reached down, swiped her thumb over her progeny's full bottom lip, let her finger linger over pillow-y flesh. "We're getting out of here," she told Tara. Azure blue eyes were resolute as they bore into bleak mahogany orbs. "Even if we have to punch holes through the walls or blow this fuckin' place apart, we _will_ get out here." She shuddered when Tara kissed the tip of her thumb, her tongue peeking out to lick at her snow-kissed skin though subtly puckered lips.

"I _will_ get you out here, Tara," Pam vowed solemnly as she leaned down to replace her thumb with her lips. She kissed Tara then, the press of her mouth against the young vampire's firm, soft, lingering. "I promise," she whispered when she pulled back.

Tara's eyes pricked with tears she refused to let fall. She swallowed when Pam resumed stroking those long fingers soothingly down her cheek. "I believe you," Tara finally whispered, having felt Pam's determination ignite the bond like a white-hot flame.

"Good." Pam leaned forward and recaptured Tara's lips in a brief, hard kiss that left them both panting and more than a little breathless when they finally parted. "Let's go." Dropping her hand from Tara's cheek, Pam started off in the direction of the explosions.

"Wait!" Tara cried out when she cottoned on to the path her maker was determined to take. "You want to go _towards_ the people with the bombs?!" She sped up to Pam and gripped at her maker's shoulder, incredulity and disbelief coloring the features of her face, her eyes betraying more than a little of the fear she felt inside. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?!"

"The others might be there," Pam snapped, her abruptly brusque tone and mercurial temper throwing Tara off balance and sending emotional vertigo down the bond. _'Eric might be there,'_ she added silently as she resumed walking down the tunnel with quick but measured steps.

When she realized that her back was painfully absent of Tara's presence, Pam pivoted, her eyes stormy and her lips slightly parted, a biting remark poised and ready on the tip of her tongue.

The wounded look on Tara's face gave her pause. Sighing, she walked back to where the young vampire remained rooted.

"Eric might there," she voiced aloud, nodding in the direction of the rumbles. She hesitated when Tara remained silent then reached up and brushed three fingers tentatively down a smooth dark cheek. "I'm sorry for snapping at you," she murmured, glaucous tinged eyes remorseful as they observed pale fingers wander down the strong line of Tara's jaw.

Tara reached up, plucked Pam's fingers from her jaw then brought them to her lips. Kissing each tip, she sought for a pair of eyes that in the dark, glowed like blue ice. "That's all I wanted to hear," she said softly. She pressed a kiss to the inside of Pam's wrist then let go. "Let's go."

Neither vampire spoke as they prowled down the tunnel, their eyes wide and ears cocked. Fists clenched and shoulders tightened as they picked up every stray drip of water, every spasmodic creak, every huff of stale, musty air.

Pam held up a hand, signaling Tara to halt as the tunnel spat them out in what looked like a mini bunker room. A new tunnel yawned outwards at the end of the room but what caught Pam's undivided attention was the row of lockers situated by the wall.

Three were empty; their metal doors flung wide open to reveal empty shelves and hooks but the fourth was ominously closed. Pam motioned Tara forward even as she began cautiously walking towards the row of lockers.

"This is like the setup to a very bad joke," Tara muttered from behind Pam. She eyed the closed locker with a mixture of trepidation and disdain. "Or a horror movie."

"Fortune favors the bold," Pam drawled dryly. Cerulean blue eyes skidded sideways in amusement at Tara's audible scowl. "Ladies first?" she offered, waving a practiced hand at the locker.

"Hell no!" Tara spat out. She took a step back, imitated Pam's gesturing hand with a mocking flourish. "After _you_," she said mock sweetly, purposefully emphasizing the last word.

"Spineless," Pam jabbed though there was no real heat behind her words. She glared at the locker for a moment, long enough to feel ripples of tension thundering down from Tara's end of the bond. Then, she shrugged and reached out to yank the locker door open.

Tara's back went ramrod straight as the locker groaned open, her entire body one raw nerve. Half expecting something to leap out, her muscles almost protested the way she abruptly relaxed them as her obsidian gaze locked onto what looked like a small arsenal.

"Fuckin' A," Tara breathed out. A glimmer of hope flickered within her as she moved to stand next to Pam. "We've hit jackpot."

Pam flashed a set of pearly white teeth in her progeny's direction. "Load up," she instructed needlessly. She reached in, pulled out two Glocks and tossed one to Tara who caught it with effortless ease. They both took a moment to check the gun's clip. Next, Pam reached for the stake thigh holsters. Strapping it securely around her thigh, she relieved the upper shelf of two stakes and slid them in place.

Tara unhooked a shoulder holster loaded with two revolvers attached from where it hung on the inside of the locker door. Shrugging it on, she tightened the straps, checked the guns for ammunition then reached in for a box of wooden bullets. She emptied the box into her pocket just as Pam clipped a grenade belt buckle around her waist.

"Structurally unsound?" Tara reminded her maker as she stared pointedly at Pam's newly appointed weapons.

"Last resort," Pam sassed back as she reached for a silver short sword tucked in its scabbard. She flung it over her back, pulled the strap over her shoulder and across her chest then readjusted it so that the handle lay within easy reach by the side of her head.

"God, that's hot," Tara admitted, staring at Pam with a sword's scabbard lying diagonally down her back. Onyx eyes glazed over with desire as they ran rampant down the length of Pam's body. With her body decorated with weaponry, Pam looked like some kind of warrior queen. '_Valkyrie,'_ Tara thought, licking her lips. Unconsciously, she took a step forward.

"Focus," Pam admonished though her eyes twinkled with mirth and unabashed delight as she enjoyed Tara's blatantly lustful stare. She tucked two magazines down her cleavage then jerked her chin towards the katana. "Suit up."

Tara gave herself a mental shake, tossed Pam a wry smile then grabbed the katana. She tied the saya's strings around her waist, readjusted the colts under each arm then pulled out the Glock she had temporarily tucked into her pants. "Ready when you are," she informed Pam, all traces of humor wiped from her voice as the grim reality of their situation bore down on her again.

Pam nodded, her expression smoothing out to an unreadable blank canvas. "Stay close," she ordered, her own Glock trained stiffly in front of her. She made her way to the exit tunnel, Tara at her heels.

xxxxxxxx

"Pam?"

The vampire in question slid a questioning cobalt gaze sideways, a small gracing her lips as they took in Tara's profile.

"That thing…demon," Tara amended as she met Pam's eyes. "Did you notice…"

"That it felt like one of us?" Pam finished as she refocused her attention back onto the darkness in front of her. "The Authority likes to experiment," she revealed dispassionately as they continued down the pitch-black tunnel. "They use witches –" Pam spat the word out as if it were something revolting on her tongue. "–to harness demon essences then force them into vampire captives." There was a pause and something unreadable passed over Pam's face before her impassive mask dropped back down. "Not many survive the transformation," she added curtly.

"Jesus," Tara whispered and even though Pam didn't catch the horrified look on her progeny's face, she felt it, a deep throb that pulsated against the bond's walls.

Pam grunted in response. Pale fingers tightened around the Glock in her hand as she continued to lead them down this seemingly never ending tunnel.

Silence lorded over maker and progeny as keen and wary eyes canvased every square of the darkness in front of them. Tara was so focused on lasering her obsidian gaze on every shadowy corner, every nook and cranny that could hide a potential assailant that when Pam stopped dead in her tracks in front of her, Tara walked straight into her maker's back. The force of her colliding into Pam's rigid body propelled her backwards, almost upsetting her balance as she strove to right herself.

"Pam?" Tension radiated off Tara in palpable waves, teeth clenched so tight that the muscles in her jaw ached. She stepped up next to her maker, fangs protracted and the Glock trained stiffly in front of her. "What is it?"

"Eric," Pam responded in a hushed tone. There was such yearning, such desperate longing in the blonde's voice that it broke Tara's heart.

The younger vampire placed a pacifying hand on the small of her maker's back. "Can you sense him?" she asked in an equally quiet voice.

"No, but his scent is here," Pam returned. She closed eyes, nostrils flaring as she picked apart Eric's unique combination of ice and salt from the mildew and staleness in the air. "It's faint, but he came through here." Hunger abruptly roared through her as she picked up Sookie's intoxicating half-fairy scent mingled with that of Eric's. "With Sookie," she gritted out as she tried to curb the bloodlust and hunger raging through her.

Tara nodded, unsurprised by the revelation. She pressed her palm into Pam's back, let her fingers brush up against the stiff corset material before dropping her hand. "Lead the way," she whispered softly.

Pam turned and bore a deep cerulean blue gaze into Tara's stalwart onyx ones. Trust. There was so much of it swimming in those dark depths that it both humbled and honored the blonde. Unable to resist, she reached out, played long fingers down Tara's cheek, crimson lips quirking as the younger vampire instinctively leaned into her touch.

"You and me," Pam whispered. Her voice quivered and her accent shifted but still, she stayed the course.

"In the wind," Tara replied, her voice soft, calm. She turned her head and pressed a heartfelt kiss to Pam's palm.

They continued walking then, Pam's eyes suddenly so iridescent with hope, that the sapphire orbs shone out from her face like electric blue beacons in the dark. When they came to a fork in the tunnel, Tara let Pam take point. She observed silently as Pam lifted her head, eyes once again closing as she used Eric's scent as a compass.

"This way," the blonde announced. She quickened her pace as she disappeared into the right tunnel, forcing Tara to match her hasty gait as she jogged lightly down the tunnel path.

When a staccato of gunfire echoed down the tunnel, Pam broke into a dead run but Tara, having read her maker's intentions the second they surfaced and percolated into the bond, blurred forward, grabbed Pam, spun her around and pinned her up against the wall.

"No." Tara's voice was harsh though her face was pained as she restrained the blonde.

"Let. Me. Go." Each word was purposefully enunciated, each letter coated with venom.

"No." Tara didn't back down, didn't flinch, didn't look away as Pam's eyes flashed blue fire. The blonde's rage was potent, toxic, flushing down to Tara's end of the bond like a noxious poison but still, Tara's didn't let go. "You are not going to run half-cocked into whatever hell is waiting for us at the end of this tunnel. Not when I fought so hard to get you out." Mahogany eyes drilled into steel-blue orbs. "I won't lose you." _Again_, she added silently as Pam's stormy blue gaze attempted to laser hole through her head. She returned the heated gaze with an enraged one of her own. "We stick to the plan."

Pam clenched her teeth, a muscle in her jaw ticking as she reined in the overwhelming urge to go to her maker's rescue. Tara was right; she wasn't thinking, only reacting, allowing her emotions to overrule her common sense. Her undead heart clenched when she was suddenly engulfed with the searing heat of Tara's pain via the bond.

Pain at the thought of losing Pam. Again.

Pam drew in a deep but needless breath. "Let me go," she repeated but her voice was softer, more contrite.

Tara studied Pam's face for a long moment before she nodded and released her. They resumed their light jog, tension thrumming between them like overly tight guitar strings. They slowed to a walk when they realized that two guards were posted at the mouth of the tunnel exit.

The guards were noticeably tense and noisily human judging from their erratically pounding pulses and heartbeats. Something had spooked them, if their stiffly trained assault rifles jutting out before them were any indication. They also wore night vision goggles to compensate for the disabling darkness they found themselves in.

As maker and progeny drew closer to the guards, the unmistakable metallic scent of blood busied the air in front of the, growing so strong and potent that Tara's eyes almost rolled to the back of her head even as her fangs dropped instinctively.

"Easy," Pam cautioned. She flowed a wave of soothing calm down to Tara through the bond, forced them both into immobility until Tara's eyes lost their bloodlust glaze and refocused back on the scene in front of her.

Tara nodded, looking a little sheepish, an expression that contradicted the fangs that still protruded from her upper lip. She tucked the Glock she held into the waistband of her pants then reached for the handle of her katana.

Pam was quick to cotton onto Tara's train of thought. Swords were quiet, noiseless. They could dispatch the guards without attracting attention, giving them the advantage of the element of surprise.

The vampires drew their swords in unison, the slight hiss of blades only audible to vampire ears.

Tara looked at Pam who in turn looked at Tara. Then they moved; their actions so in sync, so coordinated that they almost mirrored each other as they blurred up behind the sentinel guards and guided their respective swords through vulnerable flesh and bone.

Blood gushed in morbid torrents, drenching both Pam and Tara as jugular veins were cut and the spines of the guards severed. Twin wet plops followed as the newly decapitated heads dropped from the shoulders of the guards, rolling like macabre soccer balls on the floor, retching blood as they went.

The sound of the heads hitting the floor cost the pair the element of surprise. A round of bullets burst in their direction, chewing up the walls and spitting out mortar and concrete as it went.

Tara darted out from the cover of the tunnel, sliding her katana back into its saya as she went. Never stopping, and trusting Pam to watch her six, she reached for her Glock and squeezed off a retaliating round in the direction of the gunfire. The sound of bodies thumping unceremoniously to the ground sent a smile of grim satisfaction to crawl across her lips. She ignored the fact that this large circular room she and Pam had found herself in was splattered with remnants of vampire biohazard, its perimeters littered with bodies and body parts.

As Tara began clearing them a path, she noticed that they seemed to have found themselves in the epicenter of the labyrinth of tunnels. Tunnel mouths decorated the circumference of the room, yawning out in every possible direction.

One of the tunnels would grant them their freedom.

Tara hissed as a spray of bullets spat in her direction, two of them burying themselves into her shoulder and another grazing her ear. The silver ate at her flesh, the entrance wounds burning like someone had poured acid into them. Tara ducked into a tunnel mouth, used her fingers to locate and dig out the bullets before flinging them away, uncaring of how her fingertips blistered in the process. Not waiting for her shoulder to fully heal, she sprang back out, catching an unsuspecting guard under the chin with the butt of the assault rifle.

There was a nauseating crack as the bones in the guard's jaw shattered but Tara paid it nor the god-awful scream that followed no mind as she emptied a round of bullets into his chest. He dropped to the ground at Tara's feet but Tara simply kicked him out of the way and continued firing, her senses on overload from fear, adrenaline and a marrow-deep need to keep Pam safe.

Pam's mind was choke-full of colorful curses as she stayed in the cover of the tunnel, taking down guards that rushed her way or intended harm towards her progeny. If they did manage to make it out of here, she was going to silver Tara to her coffin and post a security detail around it for her unbridled recklessness.

"Fuckin' baby vamps!" Pam snarled venomously as she aimed her rifle at a nearby guard. Her bullet punched a hole through the side of the guard's head, spewing blood and brain matter out of the other side. The guard jerked, flailed then dropped to the ground but Pam was already training her weapon on her next targets.

Pale fingers tightened around the trigger, squeezing and taking out three more guards that thought to sneak up behind Tara. Blue eyes were incandescent with fear and rage as she watched Tara blur from one guard to another, punching, kicking and shooting as she went. The same eyes widened as a new contingent of guards materialized out from the far end of the circular room.

"Shit," Pam swore. The newly arrived guards were vampires and judging from the way their auras were pulsating with immense power, centuries older than she was.

Knowing that she couldn't stay hidden anymore, Pam lunged out into the melee, swinging her assault rifle into the nearest guard as she went. He doubled over as Pam batted him in the stomach with her weapon, crushed his larnyx with a quick hand chop then dropped like a sack of bricks to the ground when she fired her last two bullets into his head.

Pam didn't stop, wouldn't stop as she tossed away the rifle and wrenched the Glock from the waistband of her pants. Her only goal was to get to Tara. She began firing as she ran across the room, her bullets whizzing through the air to join the other hail of silver and wooden bullets zipping like deadly rain through the room. Bodies dropped as Pam riddled them with bullets, the blonde herself never slowing even as bullets punched holes into the side of neck, shattered a knee cap and pulverized a kidney.

"PAM!" Tara screamed as she watched one of the human guards stake Pam in her injured knee, causing her to stumble and fall. Pam still managed to snap the human guard's neck before three of the newly arrived vampire guards closed in on her, the lasers from their guns trained on Pam's heart. Instincts kicked in, fueled by a mind-numbing terror so great that it robbed her of all rationality. Tara blurred up to the guards, one hand squeezing off round after the round, the other ripping out her katana and starting a furious, unrelenting hacking that caused the blade to slice through arms, legs, necks and shoulders.

Pam wasn't rendered completely useless, however. Ignoring the way her left leg was screaming blue, bloody murder, her slowly healing kneecap grating against the broken shards of bones that were in the process of knitting themselves back together, she yanked out the stake sticking out from her thigh and sent it spinning into the nearest vampire guard.

The guard combusted on sight as the stake buried itself into his chest, piercing his heart. His two remaining comrades followed suit as Tara viciously swung her katana, cutting off their heads. Pam ducked and rolled off the side as one of the decapitated guards managed to pull the trigger before exploding into a puddle of goo, sending a spray of bullets in her direction.

"Pam!" Tara stood in front of her fallen maker, fangs elongated over a feral snarl. Tara looked almost rabid as hard obsidian eyes dared any one of the guards to come closer. Her finger twitched against the trigger of the Glock, itching to bury its bullets into the nearest living or undead body. When the two remaining human guards charged forward, shooting as they went, Tara simply ducked and twisted her body sideways to avoid bullets to the chest. She gritted her teeth against the harsh, operatic notes of pain singing down the length of her side, hips, arms and legs as bullets, both wooden and silver tore into her body. Not missing a beat, she didn't give the guards time to reload or squeeze off another round as she turned back, raised her bullet-riddled arms and shot them through the necks and head.

The two guards rocked back at the force of the bullets entering their bodies. They fell onto their back, dark red blood oozing from their fatal wounds.

By this time, Pam had recovered and was back on her feet. She didn't have the luxury of checking Tara over though she herself had to clench her teeth as her progeny's pain and agony roared down the bond like a white-hot flame.

"Stay close!" Pam growled over her shoulder as she stood back-to-back with Tara, gun cocked.

Tara managed to heed Pam's command for all of one second before the vampire guards opened fire at them, forcing them to split up in different directions to avoid the hiss of bullets.

The guards mimicked Tara and Pam's movements; three blurring off after Tara and the four after her maker. Tara howled as one of the older vampire guards caught her arm mid-blur, snapping it so viciously that the bones in her arms stabbed out of the confines of her flesh, skin peeling backwards like the opening petals of a morbid flower. She reacted by strafing him with bullets and at such a close range, aiming was unnecessary as three hit home in the guard's heart, shredding flesh and causing him to liquidate.

Tara didn't have time to realign her horribly mangled arm as the other two guards closed in on her. Glock now empty, she threw it aside and reached for the revolver under her good arm. Her actions triggered off twin rounds of bullets that spat with deadly accuracy in her direction. She ducked the spray of gunfire but with her strength flagging with every unhealed wound and injury, only managed to move so far. A bullet found a new home in her thigh, nicking her femoral artery, sending blood to vomit out. Tara fought the urge to succumb to unconsciousness, the pain her body was experiencing so intense and so all-encompassing that it was all she could do not to scream.

The younger vampire changed tactics. She flung herself into the dark of one of the tunnel mouths, buying herself scant seconds of precious time. Unsheathing her katana, she paused only to blindly snap the bone jutting out from her left arm back under her skin, almost biting her tongue in two as she held back a scream of pure agony. When she heard the sound of booted feet approach, she threw the katana in its direction, grabbed her revolver then blurred back out, shooting frantically at whatever was in front of her.

Luck was on Tara's side as she managed to dispatch one of the vampire guards but not before he threw a retaliating stake into her shoulder. Her katana stuck out of the second vampire guard's stomach and even as he shot a round of bullets in Tara's direction, Tara didn't back away. Instead, she contorted her body as much as she possibly could away from the trajectory of the hissing bullets, ducked the guard's swinging fist then came to a stop in front of him. She grabbed for the handle of the katana, yanked it sideways and tore open the guard's stomach. Nausea rolled up her throat when the guard's intestines spilled out in front of her but Tara pushed it down, pulled out the katana and ran it clean through his neck.

On the other side of the room, Pam and her troupe of vampire guards had exhausted their ammunition of bullets. Now, armed with stakes, swords and/or knives, they circled each other, predatory intent in every move.

One guard lunged forward, faking a wide overhead arc with his scimitar before pulling back at the last second only to try for a low cut that would have severed Pam at the knees. Pam, having been trained by Eric, by a Viking, saw that move coming from a mile away. She jumped up, avoided the swinging scimitar as it sailed under her temporarily suspended boots then made her short sword whistle through the air as she sliced the sharp end of its blade through the guard's neck.

As Pam landed back on her feet, she made one grave miscalculation: her swing at the decapitated guard left her front exposed and the three remaining guards took full advantage. The first punched her so hard in the stomach that she felt her insides disintegrate and blood explode into different parts of her body. The second plunged his King Arthur-esque longsword straight through her sternum. It pierced through her flesh like liquid fire, the silver gnawing at nerves and flesh before emerging out of her back and into the wall behind her, nicking her spine and effectively pinning her to the wall.

The third raised his stake, triumph glinting in his emerald green eyes but before he could bring his arm back down, the staccato sound of gunfire followed by a series of bullets punching through his body froze him in place. Body rigid, he stared at Pam, disbelief and shock coloring the features of his face before he dissolved into a puddle of blood and goo, revealing a swaying, battered and bloodied Tara standing in the middle of the room.

The two remaining guards reacted with split-second precision, one of them whipping out a throwing knife and sending it whizzing in Tara's direction. She deflected it weakly, using the barrel of her revolver to change its trajectory. It clattered to the floor behind her.

The second guard proved craftier. One hand still on the handle of the sword pinning Pam to the wall, he gave it an unpleasant twist, eliciting a pained cry from the blonde as the embedded part of the blade scraped against her spinal column. His other hand reached down for her grenade belt buckle. He yanked carelessly at it, pulling out several pins as he went. Smiling evilly at Tara, he tossed in her direction just as his partner sent three previously concealed silver shurikens spinning like deadly yo-yos towards Tara's legs.

As Tara's knees buckled, the throwing stars severing the muscles that allowed her to stand, her revolver slipped from her grasp as the last of her remaining strength left her. It dropped to the ground and skittered uselessly to the side.

"No…" Pam's eyes were wide with horror, cerulean blue eyes transfixed onto the sight of her fallen progeny collapsing next to the grenade belt buckle.

Resigned obsidian orbs were almost serene as they sought out and locked onto wide, terrified and stricken pools of steel-gray and winter-blue. Tara, with blood dripping from her split lips, trickling down from multiple bullet grazes on the sides of her head, her left arm bent at a crooked angle, her right shoulder sporting a large, ugly, gaping wound that cried crimson and the silver shurikens buried and smoking the flesh in her knees and thighs, offered Pam a small, bittersweet smile, trying to convey everything she felt, everything she would have felt had they more time together through that one simple act.

There was a series of clicks.

Then, a loud, ear-shattering bang thundered through the tunnels before the world exploded in a glorious burst of bright, hot, white light.

**TBC**


	5. Part V

**A/N** – This is a word of caution is for those who may suffer from a weak stomach. There are graphic depictions of brutality and torture in this chapter that might make some queasy. After all, it's one thing to see torture on a TV or movie screen but when left to the imagination, the scenes you picture in your head may come out painted a little richer. So, just FYI, okay? Happy reading and enjoy the weekend.

* * *

**Part V**

The emptiness in her chest crushed her. It was as if Tara's presence had been wiped from the bond, her very essence erased. To feel nothing of her progeny, to receive such cold, unforgiving silence from Tara's end of the bond…it was debilitating, devastating. Unnatural.

Pam allowed denial to poison her veins as she grappled for the bond with desperate, mental fingers.

Nothing. Empty. Not even a whisper of an echo thrummed in her chest.

Pam's eyes went blank with grief, azure blue depths dimming to shades of slate and iron in wake of the fumes of sorrow that seeped into her soul.

'_A maker always knows when her progeny dies…'_

A terrible, wounded noise escaped the confines of Pam's crimson lips. The sound was awful, a keening, mournful resonance that was designed to shred the muscles of a heart, to flay layers off a soul.

A wooden stake whistled obnoxiously through the air, its trajectory aimed straight for Pam's heart.

This new development cut off Pam's anguished cry and instinct had a pale alabaster hand snapping out. Limber magnolia-white fingers closed around the tip of the rough object, Pam stopping the stake so that its point was scant centimeters from the front of her corset.

Pam went preternaturally still, as if all semblance of movement had been robbed from her muscles. Then, dead, empty blue eyes looked up, locked onto the amber orbs of her would be executioner.

The guard, who threw the stake, had been the one to send Tara to her untimely demise. And he actually had the audacity to smirk at Pam.

Something within Pam snapped.

The blonde's face twisted with rage. Unfathomable, irrepressible, undeniable rage.

In a sudden blur of animated motion, Pam reached down with one hand, grasped the handle of the long sword that skewered her to the wall and yanked it out of her stomach with a strength that could have only come from the ashes of a deep, soul-damning pain and sorrow. Without looking, she sent it, coated to the base with her blood, in the direction of Tara's assassin. Her other hand moved in tandem, aided by her body which lunged forward to allow the stake she held to bury its point into the cheek of the guard nearer to her.

Twin howls sounded from either side of Pam, coagulating in the air above her as they collided to merge into one echoing sound of shock and agony.

Pam didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop. Not when pain was suddenly all she knew and rage was all she felt. Fingers still closed around the rough wooden object, she ripped open a wide gaping hole in the first guard's cheek. Dark blood gushed from the torn skin and flesh, revealing a set of molars that seemed to glow white against the splashes of scarlet that dotted it.

The guard screeched as Pam jerked out the stake, further aggravating the torn flesh that made up his cheek. Pieces of skin and muscle flapped and flailed about the side of his face, like shredded bloodied curtains trying in vain to conceal an open window. Clutching at his ruined face with one hand, the guard attempted a wild, blind swing in Pam's direction only for his fist to punch at empty air.

Pam moved with the swiftness and grace afforded to her as a vampire. She ducked the flying fist, raised the stake, swung her arm in a half arc and slammed the weapon into the guard's left eye. Her face was terrifyingly impassive, her eyes so devoid of emotion, so eerily numb that the very molecules in the air around her seem to freeze.

The guard's shriek of unadulterated pain went by unnoticed as Pam twisted the stake lodged in the guard's eye socket before she tugged it viciously back out. The stake's point emerged, decorated with bits of nerves and corona, the whites of the eye trapped in between splinters that had appeared under the blunt trauma of being lodged into an eyeball.

Pam was almost robotic as she stabbed the stake into guard's remaining good eye only to cock her arm back a second later. This time, the stake reemerged with the guard's entire eyeball dangling from its tip, optic nerve and all. The resounding scream that followed would have made grown men shrink with terror but it only served to fuel Pam's wrath.

Pam kicked out at the guard's chest, felt his ribs concave and shatter beneath her heel. The guard staggered only halfway backwards away from Pam before she caught up to him, the knife she secreted away in her boot, now replacing the stake in her hand.

The blonde then proceeded to make ribbons out of the flesh of the guard's chest, methodically carving and slicing and shredding until the black cloth of his sweater was so clotted with blood and matted to skin that it was almost unrecognizable amongst the lacerations on his muscled chest.

And still Pam kept going, the knife glinting in brief flashes in the dark as she almost mechanically sliced and diced though paper-thin skin, flesh, sinew and muscle.

Two things whizzed at Pam from behind. They embedded their razor sharp curved points into her shoulder blades, immediately sizzling and smoking the damaged flesh and sending teethes of agony to gnaw at the blonde's nerves.

The guard Pam was torturing had been reduced to a whimpering, bleeding mess, his face horrifically disfigured as one empty, dark socket vomited blood whilst the other damaged eye blinked and pinked with internal blood. His chest was a raw mess of flesh and muscle, bits of bone peeking out, the white a startlingly contrast to the coagulated crimson that used to be his flesh.

However, when he felt Pam jerk in response to the shurikens thrown at her back, instincts kicked in and he kicked out a leg, catching Pam at the knees.

The blonde stumbled but remained unfazed even as something cracked and pain exploded up and down her leg. She threw the knife in her hand; it spun tip over handle before hitting home in the guard's bloodied mess of a chest, directly where his unbeating heart lay.

The guard didn't even have time to gurgle out a surprise before he disintegrated into a pile of blood and gristle.

Pam didn't even bother to remove the throwing stars embedded in her shoulder blades. The notes of agony singing a ceaseless aria down her back shoulder muscles did not even come close to the pain of losing Tara. Thus, instead of dealing with her new injury, she blurred over to the second guard, who was in the midst of tugging the long sword out from his abdomen.

"Let me help you."

Pam's voice was as flat as she had ever heard it, her husky lilt emptied of every iota of feeling, of emotion. She elbowed the guard in the face, splitting his lips and splintering cartilage and bone in his nose. Then she grasped the handle of the sword and yanked it sideways, opening up vulnerable, smoking flesh. A seam appeared in the broken skin, like a bag with its zipper pulled open. Viscera and blood spat themselves out, the guard's large intestines draping themselves over the front of his pants like wriggling gummy worms.

The guard screamed, the pain so overwhelming and the shock of seeing his internal organs make an external debut, almost making him half mad.

But Pam wasn't done. This was the vampire who had killed her progeny. Sent Tara to her _True Death_. And for that, for taking away what Pam was coming to need and treasure, she would inflict upon him a cruelty and torture that he couldn't even conjure up in his wildest nightmares.

Pam grabbed a handful of the spilling intestines, unfurled a tangle of small viscera then wrapped it like a noose around the guard's neck. At the same time, she kicked at the backs of his knees, causing them to buckle and forcing him to kneel in a subservient position before her.

"You won't die," Pam informed the guard coldly, who looked half delirious with pain. "Not yet anyway. We vampires are resilient." She bent then, let her lips linger by the side of his ear. Still gripping a section of guts, she gave it a tug, tightening the makeshift noose around his neck and eliciting a pained whimper. "I could torture you for _years_ and still keep you alive." She let go of the guts, allowed them to hang around his neck and shoulders like a slimy, weeping macabre scarf then rapped her knuckles against the side of his head. She watched the resounding flinch without a trace of satisfaction. "So to speak."

Pam stared at the vampire kneeling before her, her observation akin to the way a scientist studies a new discovery under a microscope. She could see that the vampire's advance healing properties were trying to close the yawning seam in his stomach, but his intestines were hindering the full closing of the wound. Then there was also the long sword still stuck at the edge of his abdomen, the skin around it blistered, purulent and smoking courtesy of the silver.

Without preamble, she bent and slid the blade out, making sure to slice off slivers of intestine and flesh along the way. The guard gritted his teeth but pained groans still escaped unbidden as he felt bits of his body get cut away only to fall like leftover scraps of food onto the grimy floor. He then shrieked like a tea kettle when Pam jabbed the sword downwards, right between his kneeling legs into his crotch. She twisted the handle clockwise, then turned it anticlockwise, the point of the sword passing through flaccid flesh to scrape jarringly at the ground beneath the kneeling guard.

"S-stop," the guard managed, almost choking on his tongue, which had almost been chewed in half in his attempt to quell his shouts of agony. Blood pooled in his mouth, seeping from closing wounds made from his fangs and teeth. He swallowed the blood, made another attempt for a plea of mercy but it tapered off into a hiss of pain as Pam pulled the sword out of his manhood with deliberate slowness, twisting and turning the blade as she went.

Then she slashed the blade across his face, cutting a crimson line from ear to ear, making sure the blade passed each corner of his mouth, effectively decorating his face with a Chelsea grin.

The guard screamed, an instantaneous mistake for it only further pulled open the frankly terrifying wound and his lower face hung off like flaps of meat hanging from a butcher's hooks.

"How _dare_ you beg for mercy!" Pam's voice was suddenly murderous, sapphire-blue eyes ignited with a wrath that was palpable. "You are not worthy of mercy." She made a grab for his tongue; an easy task considering just how much wider his mouth suddenly was, then pulled until it ripped right out of his mouth.

Blood starburst from the shredded flesh, choking the guard and spilling down his flapping jaw like crimson rain. Pam tossed the chewed and bitten flesh to the ground, stepped on it with her heel, then grounded it beneath her shoe until it resembled nothing more than minced meat.

The guard tried to articulate, tried to stave off the strafes of pain ricocheting off his nerves like fireworks but it was an all-consuming, all-encompassing feeling. He could feel his body leeching itself of strength, his injuries far too great and numerous for them to heal effectively. He pitched forward, unconsciousness creeping up to the forefront of his brain but Pam revived him by sinking the sword into his Adam's apple.

A tortured cry of absolute agony bubbled up from the guard's throat as his voice box was ruined and pain seared the lining of his throat but Pam was beyond hearing, beyond feeling. She resorted to stabbing him repeatedly, the point of the sword sinking and sliding into various parts of the guard's body like a knife through butter. Flesh charred and smoked, the silver singeing skin and muscle as it traveled through sinew and fat. Wounds opened, smiling across lightly tanned skin and spitting out rivulets of scarlet before slowly attempting to close. They didn't heal fully though; the guard having lost too much blood and zapped of too much strength and energy to heal himself. Instead, his body became covered in a patchwork quilt of raw and angry dark pink scars, the skin over the wounds puckered and ridged.

But still Pam continued to stab and she did so with unerring accuracy, picking out the most vulnerable spots of the guard's body and making sure to pierce all the internal organs he housed. In essence, every time the tip of the sword reemerged from his body, pieces of liver, kidneys, lungs and stomach followed, Pam essentially slicing him up inside as well as out.

Blood pooled ceaselessly at where the guard knelt, creeping outwards like an organic stain and growing wider and deeper with each thrust of the sword. Every now and then, the deliberate scrap of metal against bone irritated the air around Pam and the guard, followed by random pieces of flesh or organs slipping out of the guard and off the tip of the blade to drop onto the increasing puddle of crimson.

Pam was so intent on revenge, so lost in exacting vengeance on Tara's behalf that single-minded concentration on her current activities overrode anything else. Thus, she failed to acknowledge the brief and faint flutters nudging against the walls of the bond.

It was only when Pam cut the backs of the guard's upturned ankles through his mangled boots, then forced him to stand on them which ripped apart tendons and flesh that she finally cottoned on to the fact that the maker/progeny bond was in fact, still intact.

"Tara?" Pam dropped the guard like a sack of bricks, nearly stumbling as another flutter echoed down the bond. The feeling was barely there, like the passing of a ghost, or the lightest kiss of a cool breeze against her cheek but it was enough to cut through the red smog that clouded her Prussian blue gaze.

"Tara…"

The guard whimpered and attempted a pitiful shuffle away from Pam. All his actions did was to allow him to swim in a disturbing pool of his own flesh and blood. The blonde glanced down at him, his presence suddenly insignificant and unworthy of anymore of her time. She raised the sword above her head, brought it down with a brutality and swiftness that would have made even Eric flinch and watched unfeelingly as the sharp of the blade passed through the muscles that made up his neck, severed the top of his spinal cord then emerged on the other side painted and dripping red.

The guard exploded beneath her feet, leaving a bubbling crimson stain on the ground.

Pam paid the mess no mind as she tossed aside the bloody and slightly chipped sword, her attention now fully focused on the blockage made up of collapsed ceiling, concrete, mortar and rock. The explosion from the grenades had resulted in a cave in, dividing Pam from the heart of the labyrinth though at the time, she had been drowning in too much grief and pain to notice the new development.

"Tara?!"

Pam's voice was an amalgamation of lost hope, delirium and unadulterated terror. Her face mirrored this, crimson splattered cheeks taut with painful anticipation that instantly dissolved into a mask of abject disappointment and arresting sorrow when only the echo of her voice answered.

"Tara! Answer me, damn you!"

Nothing.

"Tara, _please_!" Pam's voice broke on the last word, her body physically collapsing against a wall as defeat ate up the last of her strength when silence once again reigned supreme.

Alone, broken and bleeding, Pam allowed one stray, solitary sob rip itself out from the shackles of her throat before crimson lips sealed themselves shut disallowing any further sound. She stared at the blockage of rocks and collapsed ceiling, stared at the cave in like it was a foreign entity, something she had never in her hundred years seen before. Then, suddenly, without warning, arctic blue eyes went iridescent with palpable rage as her grief-soaked mind concluded that this was the last and only barrier that kept her from Tara.

The blonde didn't even need to think as she flew forward and began attacking the stacks of blown up ceiling and walls. She punched at the mish-mash of broken construction materials, her fists all but a blur as she worked at vamp speed. She didn't stop when the skin of her knuckles split open, revealing the raw flesh confined inside and continued to punch furiously, relentlessly until she had effectively cleaned her knuckles of skin, muscle and flesh.

And still she continued, her uncompromising goal of getting to Tara, wherever she was, numbing her of any pain she may have felt. It was only when the sound of naked bones scraping against concrete burst through the air to assault her ears that Pam forced herself to stop. She looked down, looked at the mess she had made of the backs of her hands.

There was no flesh covering her knuckles, simply a set of protruding bones that had been chipped and scratched from her constant pounding of the fallen rock and concrete.

"Fuck." Pain blossomed up her arms then, hitting her with all the grace of a runaway train as realization sank in and adrenaline bade the blonde goodbye. But as Pam looked at her handiwork, she saw that her sacrifice had not been for naught.

Giving the blockage a few well-placed kicks, Pam successfully carved out an opening to the other side. She kicked at the opening some more, widening it until she could contort her body through the jagged, circular opening.

Then she barreled through the escape hole she had made, the force of her body hitting the blockage at vamp speed aiding the widening of the hole even further.

Pam emerged on the other side only to be smacked in the face by carnage and chaos.

Charred and blown off limbs littered the epicenter of the Authority's labyrinth of tunnels. Stains of scarlet splattered every square inch of the floor and flakes of blood, flesh, skin and hair caked the walls like some sort of morbid wallpaper. The stench of death busied the air, so thick that for Pam, it was akin to wading through a pool of Jell-O. She pushed forward, ignored the cloying stink of decaying and burned bodies towards a black stain that crawled outwards out of a sizeable hole in the ground.

The very spot where she had last seen Tara.

Pam's jaw clenched as she edged closer, almost terrified out of her mind at what she would find. Her back was ramrod stiff, her knuckles still screaming in retribution even as the white of the bones disappeared under muscle and flesh that were slowly but steadily re-stitching itself together.

The blonde was simultaneously relieved, disappointed and utterly bewildered when she saw that the blown up hole in the ground was devoid of a bloody crimson mess.

Had Tara survived? She must have, though how Pam did not know. Vampires weren't immune to being blown up by bombs and grenades.

Pam shook her head, wondering if she was simply delirious with grief and sorrow. She reached up, pressed a desperate palm to the space above her breastbone and almost choked on the relief that flooded through her veins when she felt that faint flutter against her hand.

"Where are you, Tara?" She canvased her surroundings, trying to pick apart the strewn bodies that were quite literally everywhere. Some were missing limbs, others heads. Some were charred black beyond recognition while others lay in twisted, mangled heaps that made them look like eerie mannequins with their limbs arched and bent in positions that would have been impossible had the person been alive.

The sight of so much blatant death and destruction unnerved even the normally unaffected blonde. Needing a reprieve, and needing to see Tara safe, alive and well, Pam closed her eyes, tapped into the bond and tried to use that flickering flutter that signaled Tara's presence to locate her missing progeny.

Five full minutes passed before Pam's cerulean blue eyes snapped back open. Her legs had begun to move before she could even compute doing so. And they were currently taking the blonde to the tunnel at the far end of the circular room.

Pam spat out a litany of curses that almost turned the air blue when she realized that the tunnel mouth she arrived at instantly forked left and right. She closed her eyes again, trying to pin down the flutter to get a better reading of where Tara was but the presence in the bond was faint, more absent than present, which petrified Pam. Tara's presence in the bond was normally a consistent thump, the younger vampire's energy and zeal thrumming down the bond at a consistency and pace that almost mimicked a heartbeat.

But now, her presence was so faded, so indistinct that Pam struggled to catch snatches of it as it flitted down the bond. It was akin to catching air with her bare hands and with each failed attempt to map out a precise location, Pam's fear and panic grew.

"Stay with me," Pam muttered as she turned to her superior vampiric senses. Her nostrils flared, trying to pick Tara's unique scent of cloves and musk apart from the dominant scent of death and blood that strained the air. Another stream of harsh curses escaped past crimson lips when she couldn't decipher anything beyond the cloying stench of decay and blood.

"Fuck!" Pam was almost at her wits' end, the need to see Tara safe making her almost rabid with anxiety. Turning to inbred instinct, she welded narrowed and panicked cobalt blue eyes onto the tunnel fork. _'Pick one,_' a voice in her head urged. _'Follow your gut. Choose. __**Now!**_'

Pam suddenly darted left, her lithe frame all but a blur as she vamp sped down the left tunnel. A few minutes in and the tunnel arched up into an incline, cluing the blonde in to the theory that this might be the escape tunnel back topside.

She blurred around a sharp corner that came up, rounding the bend at such speeds that the air about her whooshed noisily. The manner in which she suddenly skidded to a halt when she finally rounded the corner would have almost been comical had it not been for the current and dire circumstance Pam once again found herself in.

Eyes a haunting mixture of steel-blue and winter-gray latched onto what seemed like a natural dugout that had been repurposed into a mini resting area. But it wasn't the suddenly presence of a rest stop that caused Pam's abrupt halt. No. What caused the blonde to freeze mid-run, for her heels to burn gravel and kick up dust was what her eyes ran smack dab into at the corner of the small room.

"No…" Blue eyes widened, her unbeating heart seized in her chest and the bottom of her stomach dropped to her knees as she took in the bloodcurdling, paralyzing sight in front of her…

**TBC**


	6. Part VI

**A/N –** Thanks to everyone who took the time to read and leave a review. You know I appreciate it and its super fun reading what you thought. Here's the next chapter; it's gore light from here on out. Enjoy!

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**Part VI**

Eric snarled, sounding like the rabid, wounded animal he was as a sudden gust of unnatural wind stirred into the room, announcing the abrupt arrival of a vampire.

This unknown vampire halted, stopping so suddenly that despite his current visual disability, Eric managed to make out a fuzzy cloud of dust and dirt manifesting in front of him.

The Viking growled this time, elongated fangs gnashing over lips that were pulled back into an ugly, predatory grimace. Charred, blackened hands tightened over the quarry he held in his lap, cracking and splitting open burned and scorched skin that was desperately trying to heal itself on a dangerously shortened blood supply.

The new vampire in the room made not one sound, standing so preternaturally still and silent that had it not brought with it, the extraordinarily powerful stench of blood and death, Eric would have thought that its presence was a mere figment of his imagination.

The scent of blood not his or his quarry's own wafted towards Eric, reminding him of the imminent danger standing before him. He growled again in warning, murderous rumbles that picked up in intensity and sound as they reverberated from the deep confines of his chest. Fear, adrenaline and the fact that he was currently half-blind rendered the blonde vampire almost feral as other senses were heightened, making Eric all too sensitive and hyper-aware of his surroundings.

"No…"

The succession of growls and snarls immediately died midway up Eric's vibrating throat at the husky utterance of that one word.

"Pam?"

He knew that voice, would know the sound and raspy lilt of his progeny from anywhere. However, what had Eric profoundly disturbed was the fact that Pam's scent was all but nonexistent.

Caution nipped at Eric's heels when silence answered him and he once again cursed the explosion that had basically barbequed his eyeballs within their respective sockets, robbing him temporarily of his vision.

Needing confirmation, the Viking switched to his superior sense of smell even as his slowly healing eyes fixated themselves on a blurry, distorted figure.

The stink of death and the cloyingly sweet bouquet of aching sorrow assaulted Eric's nose like an overpowering perfume. If it was indeed Pam that stood before him, he wasn't surprised that he couldn't initially smell her; death and blood and pain had infused her pores to an almost cellular level.

Eric blinked rapidly, deliberately trying in vain to hasten the return of his eyesight. Frustration built within his gangly frame as his nostrils flared, allowing him to begin picking apart the miasma of scents and smells that lingered around the mute vampire.

Blood and death. That's what hit him first, like a striking blow from a hammer, so strong and fresh it was. This reek was made up of a combination of different vampires, the almost dizzying mix of wildly different smells almost sending Eric's mind reeling. It also made the protective beast in Eric roar with rage, fury and indignation rearing their ugly heads as the blonde vampire cottoned onto how these scents came to be on Pam. The need to spill blood, to exact revenge was strong in Eric, two instinctive reactions that would always be allotted to his child, bond or no bond.

If this vampire was Pam that is.

He tunneled through the thick layer of blood and death, ignored how the scent seemed to come with screaming atoms of recent torture and smacked into a hard wall of pain and sorrow. This new foe was harder to battle, so potent and crushing it was, the intensity and depth of it causing Eric to involuntarily clench his teeth and grip even harder at his quarry's motionless shoulders.

A muscle ticking erratically in his jaw, Eric waded through this debilitating atmosphere of anguish and loss, each step feeling as though serrated razor blades were slowly but deliberately being pushed into the soft muscles of his heart.

There.

Beneath the pain and blood and death and sorrow, Eric finally found the scent he was so desperately seeking.

Lavender. Honeysuckle. A faint strand of vanilla to tie all three scents together to form the bouquet that was uniquely Pam.

"Pamela." Relief flooded through him, so much so that his muscles turned to the consistency of Jell-O and the steely grip he had on his quarry slackened. "Say something," he urged when silence once again mocked him.

"You saved her?"

Pam's stricken tone was akin to nails on a chalkboard and despite himself Eric winced even as he nodded. He looked down at the subject of Pam's inquiry, blew out another breath of relief when he could actually make out the smooth, blank features that currently sat on Tara's face.

"Barely," he admitted, blinking once more, his vision finally returning to him between one blink and the next. He looked up from where his grand progeny lay draped across his lap and sea blue-green eyes widened almost dramatically as he was finally able to take in the sight of his own child.

"Jesus, Pamela…"

Eric couldn't even finish the sentence, the sight of Pam drenched head to toe in blood, guts and god only knew what else, rendering him stunned and speechless. Almost every inch of the blonde's flawless ivory skin was speckled and flecked with scarlet. The famed Elizabeth Bathory herself would have run screaming from the sight of Pam.

Eric himself was fighting hard to school his face into an expression that was anything but horrified as he stared at his child, ocean stained eyes moving from her blood matted hair to crimson streaks that snaked across her face like war paint to bloodied, torn and shot through clothing that was beyond redemption. Wounds decorated Pam's blood-stained skin like weeping tattoos, each one seemingly larger and more fatal than the last. When those blue-green eyes settled on raw, bloodied knuckles hanging limply on either side of Pam's thighs, Eric felt his heart constrict in his chest.

"Pam…"

"Have you seen Jessica?" Pam cut him off abruptly, cerulean blue eyes never leaving Tara's motionless body. To the casual observer, it would have seem as though those blue depths revealed nothing but a chasm of emptiness. However, closer inspection would have have resulted in seeing something akin to grief - but deeper, darker - flicker like a struggling flame in those eerily still azure depths.

Eric struggled against the urge to flinch at the monotony of Pam's cadence. He had never in his over a hundred years with Pam, heard her sound so...empty. Nor had he ever quite seen that expression on her face. It was almost indescribable, what sat on the features of his child's face. Her face was so still, so blank yet every now and then something sinister, something dark, would ripple, originating from the center of her steel-blue eyes until it echoed outwards, making the muscles in her cheeks and jaw twitch.

It was the stillness of chaos. That's what currently held Pam's face prisoner.

Eric shuddered when he caught another glimpse of that stillness. But he nodded anyway, knowing instinctively that answering was the best course of action. "She's safe. She made it out. Pam..."

"And Sookie?'

Genuine surprise flashed across Eric's face at the mention of his half-fairy lover's name escaping voluntarily out of Pam's lips. Growing more perplexed and concerned, especially when his eyes skirted the eerily blank expression on Pam's face, he nodded once again. "Everyone we know is safe," he informed her in a steady and deliberately calm tone. "My sister is..."

This time Eric cut himself off, wincing as he did for this was not the way he wanted to tell his one and only child about hidden blood relatives. Expecting Pam to blow a gasket, he was once again stupefied when Pam bypassed that important nugget of information only to bring back to his attention, the currently dire situation that was his child's child.

"That needs to come out."

Pam was referring to the broken piece of water pipe that had made a new home for itself in Tara's chest.

"It does," Eric agreed quietly. He held up a still blackened hand. "You're going to have to pull it out."

"It's too close to the heart."

Too close was an understatement. Judging from its angle and current position on Tara's chest, Eric estimated that the rod of pipe was directly next to or scant centimeters away from the heart. One nick, one graze was all it would take to render Tara to nothing more than a mass of blood and gristle.

Which was why Eric was in the position he was currently in: hiding. Protecting. Protecting a new member of his family that judging from his own child's face, was of a great importance to her. At least that was what the Viking garnered from Pam's empty, anguished Prussian blue eyes.

Eyes that held wells of pain. Pain that could have only come from one thing.

"You thought she died." A viable theory was formulating in Eric's sharp mind as he observed Pam stare at Tara's prone figure, never blinking, never moving from where she stood.

"They tossed the grenade belt right in front of where she knelt," Pam supplied, her voice robotic, dispassionate.

Eric pushed down that tidal wave of rage, knowing that such blatant emotion was useless. Judging from Pam's bloodied state; she had more than taken care of the vampires that thought to slaughter her progeny. "She's alive, Pamela," he tried to reassure her.

"Her end of the bond winked out after the explosion," Pam continued in that same empty, monotonous voice, talking as though she did not hear her maker speak. "I felt nothing from her. I thought the bond severed."

Eric swallowed, knowing exactly what Pam felt for he had forced himself and her to experience that crushing, scarring sensation that would forever be seared into his psyche when he cut off their maker/progeny tie. "She's here, Pam," Eric tried again, infusing calm, belief into his tone. "She's alive."

"I can barely feel her." An absentminded hand wandered up to press against the swell of her left breast, right over her breastbone. "Minute flutters, fleeting brushes of recognition." For the first time, Pam's monotonous drone bore a distinctive, audible crack as pale fingers lingered over the spot that housed the bond.

"Her body in stasis," Eric explained as he spared another look at Tara. It must be so traumatizing for Pam, to see her child so still, lifeless and unresponsive given what she thought happened. He also knew that Pam had reached her emotional threshold, crossing over that sane and sensible border the second she thought her progeny dead. Now, after having been forced to walk that tightrope between sorrow and pain, she has shut down, unable to deal with what ifs, buts and false hope.

Facts were what Pam needed. And facts were something Eric could provide. "Her body does not have enough blood to regenerate, function," he told Pam in a conversational tone. Ignoring her silence, he pressed on. "She's, for all intents and purposes, in a coma. Without blood, she won't wake but her vampire makeup won't let her die either."

"She needs blood." The emotionless drone was back and Eric was starting to really fear for his child's mental state of mind.

"She needs blood," Eric affirmed. "Anybody alive back in the circle room?"

"No."

"Any bodies intact?" Eric asked.

"A few," came the emotionless reply.

"I'm going to help the wounds on her body to start healing with my blood," Eric told Pam. "I need you to bring back a body or two." He looked up and into those dead, empty eyes, wanted nothing more than to take his child into his arms and hold her until some semblance of Pam returned to that sapphire gaze but until Tara was awake and alert, he knew nothing would snap her out of her emotionless vacuum. "Can you do that, Pam?"

"Yes."

Again with the monosyllabic answers. Pam had never been able to incite in Eric, a sense of discomfort or fear but tonight, in that natural dugout, the Viking had the almost irrepressible urge to widen the physical distance between them. There was a coldness, an iciness that hung around Pam like a phantom ghost. It ate into what little heat Eric's body possessed, sucking away every iota of warmth, dampening any happy memory his subconscious thought to conjure.

"No."

Pam's raspy lilt was almost jarring as it threw Eric back to reality. He head cocked curiously at his progeny. "No?" he queried, confusion coloring his tone.

"Dead man's blood," Pam spoke in that same robotic fashion. Cobalt blue snapped onto Eric's but they didn't seem to lock onto sea blue-green orbs so much as stare right through him. Eric suppressed a shudder, the inhumanity in his child's eyes chilling. "Dead man's blood is useless."

"It's all we have," Eric replied quietly. He looked down at Tara. "It's all _she_ has," he emphasized. "Find the freshest bodies and bring them back."

Pam responded by blurring away, once again kicking up dust and disturbing the stale air that curled around the room like a moth-eaten scarf.

The second Pam's presence disappeared, Eric's shoulders drooped, the Viking not having known them to have tensed. It was only when he was alone with Tara that he realized just how suffocating, how choking Pam's emotional projection or lack thereof was. He pulled Tara a little closer to him, his newly healed hands flexing and stretching the regenerated skin and flesh.

"You are not allowed to die," he spoke quietly to his grand progeny as he settled his back against the craggy wall. "Do you hear me?" He protracted his fangs then lifted his wrist to his mouth. Tearing open twin ragged lines through skin, flesh and veins, he began milking out his thousand year old blood into Tara's numerous and varied wounds all over her body.

"You are _not_ allowed to die," he repeated solemnly as he watched a brutal head wound began stitching itself back together. "She won't survive it." He then moved his weeping wrist to Tara's mouth, squeezing and aggravating the self-inflicted wounds to drop as much blood as he could offer into the comatose vampire's mouth. "So you just hold the fuck on."

xxxxxxxx

Bodies.

Human bodies.

Crumpled, broken and lying in distorted fashions throughout the room like bleeding, brutalized puzzle pieces. Jagged bones jutted through ripped clothing and bent limbs, spearing through mangled flesh, fat, muscle and skin only to protrude obscenely into the air, its crude and serrated tips tainted red.

Pam paid the carnage no attention, didn't care that every step she took dropped her ruined shoes into puddle after puddle of leftover vampire biohazard. Her face was a terrifying blank canvas, her eyes devoid of any iota of emotion as she scouted her terrain, trying to find the freshest quarries to fill her quota.

The blonde froze as she stopped in the middle of the room, cocking her head as she used her superior sense of smell to discern one body's scent from the next.

A twinge coming from between her shoulder blades distracted her. Reaching behind with one hand, she felt about, hissing instinctively when the pads of her fingers came into contact with cool silver.

They were embedded deep into her flesh; the weapons' curved edges digging past skin and muscle only scorch the tissue it settled in. Around it, pale alabaster skin had tried to heal around the embedded metal, which meant that when Pam pulled out the throwing stars, she would once again rent tears through her own flesh.

Skin sizzled, a daunting sound in this silent, echoing tomb as the blonde tightened her grip on the first shuriken. The metallic scent of blood immediately stained the air when Pam yanked none too gently on the throwing star, forcing it out of her shoulder and shredding snow-white skin in the process.

There was a dull clink as Pam dropped the weapon needlessly to the ground. Burning flesh soon raided the air, fighting with the heavy coppery notes of blood as Pam tugged on the second throwing star, muscles, flesh and skin splitting open to vomit rivulets of blood as she too yanked the offending item out before letting it fall to the ground at her feet.

Pam didn't bother to check on the self-inflicted wounds, didn't care that the back of her left shoulder was currently running wet with crimson. She refocused, her head cocked once again and nostrils flaring as cool, aloof blue eyes scanned the terrain of bodies and blood.

There.

The blonde lunged, putting her vampiric speed to good use as she blurred across the room and picked up a surprisingly intact if bullet riddled body. She sniffed, nose wrinkling in slight distaste as the tepid and coagulating stench of blood wafted up to her nose. But out of all the bodies in this room of torn and mangled limbs, this one was the freshest.

Pam threw the body over her shoulder in a fireman's carry.

Then she blurred back down the tunnel.

Back to Eric.

Back to Tara.

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Pam dropped the body next to Eric with an unceremonious thump.

"Body," she announced needlessly, impassively. Blue eyes, more a dull-iron gray due to her stonewalling her emotions, skittered sideways until they fell on Tara's still impressively bruised, torn up, bullet-ridden, knife slashed body. "You didn't heal her."

"I gave her as much of my blood as I could," Eric defended uselessly. He shifted Tara until she was lying between his newly open thighs. Propping her back against his chest carefully, he gripped at her shoulders. "You need to pull the pipe out before we feed her."

Pam eyed the line of pipe sticking out of Tara's chest, the way a fighter eyed their opponent. "Too close to the heart," she told her maker listlessly.

"Goddamn it, Pam, it _needs_ to come out." Eric's patience, of which he naturally possessed little, was reaching its end. "Pull. It. Out."

A juddering breath escaped Pam then, a flicker of emotion sparking in the steely blue of her irises. She dropped carelessly to her knees in front of Tara, between Eric's legs, her entire body one raw nerve, her muscles too tired to shake the lithe frame that was entirely too tense. An alabaster hand reached up, hovered, hesitated before pale fingers finally wrapped themselves around the protruding end of the pipe.

The air around the vampire trio seemed to still and even Eric held his nonexistent breath as Pam began slowly sliding the pipe out, making sure not to change its trajectory by even a sliver.

"Good girl," Eric whispered, his voice hushed, muted as Pam pulled the pipe out, slow by slow inch. Sea blue-green eyes never left the slowly emerging pipe, Eric's hands on Tara's shoulders immoveable, unflinching.

When the jagged end of the pipe, the part of the object that had tunneled a trench through Tara's chest deep enough to lose several fingers in, came out, Pam sat back on her haunches, holding the bloodstained pipe in her hand as though she had never seen such an item.

Eric felt an incremental amount of tension drain from his muscles as he stared at the now gaping hole in Tara's chest. It wasn't healing but it wasn't retching out fountains of blood either.

"Pam, the body," Eric instructed.

Pam's blank, empty gaze shifted, petrifyingly dead eyes so blue in the dark as they landed on the body she had procured from the unintentional tomb that was the heart of the labyrinth.

Eric flinched when Pam suddenly drove the serrated end of the pipe through the body's left wrist, the act so swift and forceful that the pipe made an awful "thunk" as it hit the stony ground, bones crunching along the way. With a calmness and detachment that was painfully frightening, Pam yanked the pipe out, dropped it carelessly next to her then dragged the abused wrist to Tara's mouth.

Blue eyes were devoid of any sort of warmth as pale fingers squeezed at the appendage, milking out as much blood as she could procure from the body.

"Give me your wrist," Eric requested in a quiet tone when he noted that the dead body's blood was working far too slow. Time was running out; not only were they still in enemy territory but time was also working against them. Already, Eric could feel the creep of dawn approach, like an uncomfortable sensation that danced a mocking path up his spine.

"Pam," he called out a little more sharply than he intended when his child failed to acknowledge his request. When Pam obediently held it up, Eric tore into soft pale skin, sharp incisors breaking through skin, flesh and muscle until there was a subtle pop and warm liquid settled against his tongue. Swallowing the residual blood that starburst into his mouth, he turned Pam's upturned wrist downwards, directly over the gaping wound in Tara's chest.

The next few minutes proved almost unbearably tense as both Pam and Eric's patience were put to the test. Pam, having exsanguinated the dead body of every last quart of its blood, coldly kicked it aside; it spun through the air, smacking a faraway wall with a sickening thud before sliding down in a crumpled heap onto the dusty floor.

Remote blue eyes then joined a pair of worried sea blue-green ones in observing the still unconscious, unresponsive Tara.

A minute passed. Eric's long fingers flexed against their post on either side of Tara's shoulders.

Three minutes passed. Pam shivered despite herself. She was so cold; not a physical kind of cold but the kind that ate into her bones, withering her soul and shriveling her heart. The air around Pam thickened, chilled, trying to match the arctic temperatures bleeding out from the blonde's tense, lithe body, Tara's maker teetering on the edge of a complete mental and psychological breakdown as time ticked mercilessly by.

Five minutes passed. Tara did not move, did not wake.

Eric's face fell, pale, limber fingers absentmindedly kneading at the dark flesh it found beneath its fingertips.

Pam's icy resolve proved to be disintegrating as Tara's unresponsiveness slowly began edging her out from her emotional void. A lone tremor raked through the blonde's lithe frame, cerulean blue eyes disturbingly bright and electric with grief even as they remain welded onto the smooth, blank features of her progeny's face.

"Pam…"

Pam did not acknowledge Eric's calling of her name, her maker's voice sounding as though it were coming from the end of a very long tunnel.

She stared.

"Pam…"

Air roared through her ears, loud, ceaseless and relentless as sapphire orbs remained locked onto Tara's face. Her vision blurred, the world around her seemed to tilt on its axis as more seconds trickled by, each one robbing her of every last thread of hope.

"Pam…"

Eric's voice was garbled, distorted. It sounded as though she were trying to hear him speak from under water. She tried to look up, tried to find those pools of calming sea blue-green eyes but her body neither had the will nor the strength to move from its current position, her eyes adamant and refusing to budge from its sentinel gaze on Tara's face.

"Pamela, LOOK!"

She was so cold, icy drifts renting her veins, atrophying her muscles, a glacial blizzard tearing her from the inside out.

But she forced herself to raise her head.

Blue eyes were dull with sorrow, flaying Eric with the depth of its pain.

But Pam obeyed.

Pam looked.

**TBC**

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**A/N** **2 **– Alright, I know I said this story was going to be angst light and this chapter aside, it has been. Right? I wasn't doling out the angst at every possible avenue in each chapter. *laughs* This one was suitably angst-y because it needed to be. Hopefully, it didn't derail y'all too much. Let me know what you thought if you've got half a second. Thanks for reading!


	7. Part VII

**A/N** – Aaand we have reached the end of this somewhat bumpy and bloody ride. I hope y'all enjoyed it. Feedback, constructive criticism and comments are welcomed. Happy reading.

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**Part VII**

Tara felt as though an elephant were sitting on her chest, pressing her into the ground. The pressure was relentless, ceaseless, unbearable. She tried to move; her body wouldn't listen. It was as though each limb had been laden down with weights, her veins infused with lead and cement that had hardened, stiffened.

The young vampire's body raged with pain and it was so tempting, so easy to slip back into that realm of darkness, of quiet, of peace she had just floated from. The call of unconsciousness was seductive, alluring, its voice husky, smoky with persuasiveness, singing to her senses like a siren's song.

But Tara resisted. She resisted darkness' embrace around her, holding her like one would a lover.

She resisted because the pain she felt throughout her body was nothing compared the pain she felt throbbing from the bond.

The bond.

Pam.

Tara's brows furrowed, teeth clamping down on each other as she forced herself to swim through the thick, viscous fog that seemed hell bent on keeping her encased in this black hole.

Pam. She needed to get to Pam.

Obsidian eyes fluttered, resisted Tara's command to open, her eyelids feeling as though they had the weight of the world sitting on them. Dark brows knitted further, creating a deep groove between her eyes as she pushed against the dark, against the pain, against the god awful pressure pressing against every iota of her body.

She staggered to consciousness, her body screaming with agony on a cellular level, the pain so great that Tara couldn't stop the gasp that escaped unbidden from her throat, the flinch that only made the pain engulfing her body worse.

She sank back against a hard body that seem comprised of lean, sculpted muscles. Long fingers that perched on her shoulders, tightened, steadying her, supporting her.

"That's it," a low alto murmured into her ear, cool lips brushing against its shell. "Good girl."

The voice wasn't Pam's but it was familiar. And so was the scent that accompanied the body she was currently propped up against.

Ice. Salt. Winter.

"E-Eric?"

God, even the sound of her voice hurt, making her head buzz and her eardrums to recoil. Tara burrowed into the body that held her, needing comfort, needing a reprieve from the jaws of pain that wouldn't stop sinking its teeth into every available nerve in her body.

"You're okay," Eric's voice drifted from above her head, his tone lulling, soothing, wrapping Tara in that blanket of comforting and safety she so desperately craved. "You're okay."

A large hand settled on her hair, carding long, lean fingers through the messy, blood-soaked and tangled tresses.

Darkness. It called to her again and Tara felt her control slip as vertigo swept her up in its arms, tilting her equilibrium on its head.

The tattoo of anguish against her breastbone snapped her out of it.

Tara gritted her teeth, hands forming twin fists as she dug her nails into her palms, creating half-moon indents in the flesh below. She forced her eyes to open; they nearly slammed shut involuntarily as light assaulted her pupils, like twin pokers of heat that speared into the depths of her irises.

She pushed against the horrid sensation, forced her eyes to adjust to the light.

And found a pair of sorrow flayed cerulean blue eyes locked onto her.

"Pam…"

Tara tried to push out of Eric's arms, fought to lean forward, to tumble into Pam but she couldn't move, her limbs so heavy, so unresponsive.

A sob escaped her, frustration building and causing that agonizing thrum of pain in her chest to tenfold.

"Easy." Eric's voice was skimming that level of calm, of forced serenity though the worry and concern that fringed his voice ruined his efforts.

The Viking helped Tara to sit up properly, slowing his movements when he realized that every seemingly casual motion induced in his grand progeny a bone-deep flinch that bespoke of unparalleled pain.

"P-Pam?"

Tara wondered why her maker didn't make one move towards her even as she slumped bonelessly, helplessly against Eric's tall frame. She stared at the blonde through blurry eyes, the pain in her body still so overwhelming that even the simple act of using her sight was proving to be a Herculean feat.

Pain-riddled onyx orbs struggled to focus on Pam, the lone act sending a javelin of pain to lance through her brain. But it was her heart that ultimately suffered when her vision finally sharpened, the distorted, rippling edges of Pam's figure solidifying and clearing into an image that immediately rent deep grooves across the soft muscles of her heart.

Pam.

Kneeling in front of her. Motionless. Unblinking.

And her expression? Painful. Like she was in complete and utter agony, sorrow all but leeching out from dull blue-gray eyes.

"Pam." Tara pushed away her pain, forced it all into a box and kicked it into the furthermost corner of her mind.

She shoved away from Eric, ignored how barely regenerated muscles screamed and shrieked out a long note of never ending agony and shuffled forward, one agonizing inch at a time.

"Pam." Shaking hands lifted, her very skin howling with displeasure as Tara forced her arms to rise, her palms to land, to slide, to cup either side of a pale cheek. "Pam."

Pam stared at Tara, those grief-laden Prussian blue eyes empty and blank save for pain and sorrow that marked those blue orbs like a prized possession. The blonde was clearly still in lockdown mode; uncertain of how to act, how to feel.

"Pam." Her maker's name was all Tara seemed capable of saying, though her throat screamed with rage with every forced vibration the young vampire made it conjure in order to verbally say aloud her maker's name. Limber fingers dipped in midnight ached with hurt as they played over smooth, soft snow-kissed skin, urging some semblance of emotion to flicker across Pam's disturbingly vacant face.

"Pamela." It was Eric this time who spoke, sliding out from behind Tara only to reposition himself next to his child. He tenderly touched her blood-matted hair, stroked a lone finger down an incredibly tense back. "She's here," he whispered softly into a crimson stained ear. "Tara's alive."

Tara nodded, aggravating her head in the process as jangles of pain ricocheted against her skull. Dark fingers pressed into soft, alabaster flesh, _willing_ Pam to snap out of her emotionless void. "_Please_," she husked, her voice sounding to her ears like nails on a chalkboard. There was so much pain flaring through the bond that it almost knocked Tara back into unconsciousness. Pam's pain was like a live entity, wounded, cornered and hurting. It clawed at the walls of the bond, shrieking and howling as it went, fierce echoes of its torture washing down to Tara's end until it all but consumed the younger vampire in its potent madness.

Tara shuddered, eyes bloodying with unshed tears as another noxious pulse of agony slammed into her end of the bond, momentarily robbing her of sight and sound of mind. Shivering, she clamped down on the hurt beating against her breastbone and batted weakly at the fingers of darkness that crept into the corners of her vision. It was a losing battle, Tara knew it, the darkness knew it. The only way she was to emerge victorious was for the pain in her chest to stop. She wanted,_ needed_, the pain in her chest to stop. There was so much pain, too much pain. It hurt. It hurt so much.

Touching the tips of her fingers to Pam's cheek, Tara tried again. "Pam."

Perhaps it was the desperate plea in Tara's voice. Perhaps it was the way Tara stroked her fingers softly, soothingly, lovingly down the sides of her face. Or perhaps it was what Tara projected into the bond:

Warmth. Safety. Reassurance.

Pam suddenly lunged forward, smacking Tara into the craggy wall at her back and eliciting a surprised gasp and pained moan from her progeny that was quickly swallowed when Pam covered Tara's mouth with her own.

The blonde kissed Tara as if her lips meant Pam's life, speaking volumes to the young vampire beneath her with just her mouth, her lips, the act saying more than words ever could.

Tara was in a world of pain, her battered and bruised body, her reeling senses, her very mind not ready for Pam's sensual assault. But it was a pain she welcomed, needed, _craved_.

Quivering hands wound around Pam's back, pressing the blonde impossibly closer to her even as Pam shoved her painfully up against the stone wall, her mouth plundering hers with an intensity, a desperation that Tara had never before experienced.

It was more than a kiss; it was a brand, a memory, a mark of possession that Tara was meant to carry for the rest of her nights.

The young vampire went lax beneath her maker, every nerve in her body ignited with equal amounts of pleasure and pain, her jaw aching as she fought to reciprocate, to give back to Pam what Pam was currently infusing her cells with:

Promise. The promise of today, tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come.

A choked sob escaped Tara, crimson squeezing out from the corners of her eyes as the bond buckled under the ferocity and intensity of Pam's emotions and pain and bewilderment from Tara's.

At the pained sound, Pam tore her lips away from Tara's, sapphire tinged eyes widening as the last waves of possessiveness and lust ebbed from her lithe frame, retreating to allow her common sense taking over the reins.

"Shit." Pam wrenched her body away, the immediate loss of contact drawing out a displeased keen from her progeny. "I'm sorry, I…"

"Don't you _dare_ apologize," Tara rasped as she sought for Pam's hand, dark fingers wrapping themselves around pale ones the second she found them. She squeezed at her maker's fingers, searched and locked her obsidian gaze onto those disturbingly profound orbs of steel-gray and winter blue. "Hey," she offered quietly.

Pam wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the verbal exchange. She shivered, Tara's fingers squeezing her own helping her body to revive some of that warmth, that heat that had all but been eradicated when she thought Tara dead. "Hey," she echoed softly, her voice no louder than a whisper. She leaned forward then, carefulness and gentleness etched in every motion. She reached out and cupped Tara's cheek, sighing as the young vampire instinctively leaned into her touch. "I thought I lost you," she confessed in a pained tone, her voice breaking under the pressure of too many emotions still raging within her.

"I know." Tara's voice was regretful even as she rubbed her cheek against Pam's palm. "I'm sorry."

"Don't you _ever_ do that to me again." Pam's eyes flashed dangerous blue fire as she glared down at Tara, the blistering gaze a sharp contrast to the way her fingers were playing almost reverently over soft, dark skin. "Please," she added, her accent shifting as her expression once again softened. She leaned forward, brushed her lips gingerly against Tara's, let their mouths linger, fuse before pulling back. "Okay?"

Tara nodded, winded by too much pain pushing through her body, the earth-shattering, soul-defining kiss she just shared with Pam and the blonde's blatant display of naked emotion. "Okay," she agreed over a ragged exhale, her body still in the clutches of a kind of hurt that was almost surreal.

"Let's get you up." Pam slid a trembling hand under Tara's arm; brought Tara's other equally shaking hand to rest on her shoulders.

"Here," Eric offered as he moved to help the pair, having observed the way they both quivered and shook as they attempted to lean on each other.

The feral, vicious snarl that followed Eric's attempt to help was unexpected and so was the hand that Pam harshly snapped out, its lean fingers curling and locking over a pale wrist before boring down on the bones it housed with a kind of fatal pressure designed to caution then break.

"Pam!" Tara's eyes went wide, her expression stunned and appropriately stupefied as she watched the way Pam turned on Eric, the beautiful features of her face contorting into a mask of savage rage as she whirled around to bare her teeth at him. Fangs had dropped, elongating over lips that were pulled back into an ugly warning snarl, growls falling from those lips in rapid succession.

"Pam, stop." Tara yanked at the rigid arm her maker had attached to Eric's wrist but she was too weak to do anything but induce in her body, another agonizing wave of pain. "Stop," she urged her maker, her fingers shifting from tugging to stroking the soft skin of Pam's forearm.

Eric's own sea blue-green eyes were wide, the ocean-tinted orbs belying the barest flicker of hurt and surprise before it winked out, understanding replacing the two emotions that instinctively reared its heads when his own child decided to treat him like the enemy.

The tall Viking raised his free hand in the universal gesture of surrender. "I yield," he informed Pam quietly, submissively, going so far as to bow his head. He understood Pam's impetuous reaction, respected it, knew where it came from.

Few things were ingrained as deeply into vampires as territoriality. It was strong enough toward anyone a vampire considered theirs but practically rabid if one threw love into the mix.*

Tara was Pam's. She was _hers_. And Eric had encroached onto Pam's territory without permission.

The tall Viking lowered his head further, his body going plaint, blonde head bowed so low that his chin brushed his chest. It was the ultimate posture of submission, one Eric would never bestow upon anyone but Pam.

Pam dropped her maker's arm, cobalt blue eyes eyeing him the way a starved predator would eye its prey. Primal instinct roared at Pam not to lose Eric from her line of sight so she watched as the Viking retreated, wariness in every gaze as she shifted subtly to cover Tara's still sitting body with her own, effectively shielding her progeny from the Viking.

Eric backed up slowly, cautiously, both hands now held out in front of him, sea blue-green eyes never leaving Pam's.

Pam in turn observed each measured step Eric took, her entire lithe frame organic steel and so very tense. She relaxed a fraction, sapphire-blue eyes losing some of its heat when the distance Eric put between him and Pam and Tara was deemed appropriate in the blonde's mind.

"Jesus, Pam, it's just Eric," Tara supplied, astonishment coloring her tone. She returned to tugging at Pam's arm, waited until the blonde turned to look at her then reached up to cup Pam's face. "It's okay," she assured her maker quietly. "It's okay."

Pam struggled through the thick red haze clouding her vision, drawing strength and reason from the soothing touches Tara's fingers were bestowing upon her cheek. She shook her head, retracted her fangs then leaned forward until their foreheads met. She inhaled her progeny's scent, easily picking up the unique bouquet of cloves and musk hiding beneath the stink of blood and death. One hand lifted, hovered, hesitated then alighted with aching gentleness on the swell of Tara's left breast, right over the spot where the bond hummed, a low buzz that tickled against a pale palm.

"Tara…"

"I'm right here," Tara whispered as she tilted her head and pressed her lips against Pam's, her own shaking hand reaching up to cover the hand Pam had on her chest. She added minute pressure, trembled when alabaster fingers splayed over the ruined cotton material of her top. "I'm here."

Pam nodded though she wouldn't stop sucking in deep breaths of Tara's scent, the hand on the young vampire's chest greedy as it nestled its palm possessively over the slight tattoo emanating from the bond. It was as though she were trying to infuse the aroma of musk and cloves into her pores, drawing in her progeny's scent until it melded with her very DNA, her hand trying to memorize the steady rhythm of notes beating quietly against the confines of dark skin.

"We have to go." Eric's voice was contrite, purposefully non-antagonistic as he watched his child reaffirm and reacquaint herself with her own progeny. He knew Pam needed the closeness, needed the tactile contact but he could only afford the newly reunited couple only so much time. Bill was still lurking around the Authority's headquarters and dawn was but an hour away. Their window of escape was closing and it was closing fast.

"Pamela," he tried again when Pam began purposefully mapping out the features of Tara's face with her fingers, each brush of her fingertips reverent, devout.

"We need to go," Tara echoed her grand maker's sentiments. She brushed her lips against Pam's one more time, soaked up the blonde's aroma of lavender and honeysuckle and vanilla before pulling back, wincing as her body once again howled with pain. "Help me up?"

Pam didn't stop the pout or flash of disappointment that chased itself across the striking features of her face. She surged forward to capture Tara's lips one more time then turned her head to nuzzle her nose into the hollow of a dark cheek before reluctantly pulling back; stark displeasure stamped across her face at the interruption.

"You're pouting." Tara didn't know to be amused or amazed, her face flickering between the two expressions as she stared dreamily up at her maker.

Pam scowled but wrapped her arms around Tara gingerly, carefully, before she stood, cradling the young vampire protectively against her chest.

"Hey, I can walk," Tara protested as she made a feeble push against Pam's shoulder before her hand went limp and boneless. "God, everything hurts," she mumbled, defeating clanging against her stalwart Southern drawl. Her body felt like one big bruise, unhealed wounds still littering and marring almost every inch of her skin. She went slack against her maker, her body starved of resources to object Pam's sudden display and need for chivalry.

"You need to conserve your energy," Pam informed her as she shifted Tara's weight more securely in her arms. Unable to resist, she ghosted a kiss across Tara's cheek, an affectionate smile tugging at her lips when Tara sank further into her arms, tucking her head against her shoulder.

"This way," Eric spoke up, loathing to disturb the quiet moment between his progeny and his progeny's child but they really had to go. He kept a wide berth between himself and Pam and Tara, not wanting to set off Pam's protective streak that seemed to be on a hair's trigger.

Pam followed Eric's slightly hunched back down the tunnel, blue eyes cautious and wary as they scanned her surrounding with a hawk-like intensity. In her arms, Tara seemed to drift in and out of consciousness, her slight weight sagging heavily against her arms though Pam had no trouble carrying her. She pulled her progeny closer to her chest, relishing the contact even as her senses were on high alert.

Relief almost caused her muscles to jelly and her knees to knock together as the trio finally emerged from the bowels of the Authority, moonlight greeting them with a warm silver-white bath of gentle light. A faintly salty, grassy breezed danced around Pam, lifting strands of blood-soaked hair and momentarily chasing away the lingering reek of blood and death.

"Tara!"

A warning growl escaped Pam as Sookie ran towards them only to be halted by Eric. Pam didn't bother tuning in to her maker and the half-fairy's brief exchange, too busy holding Tara impossibly closer to her even as dangerous growls spouted from her lips, causing her chest to vibrate.

"Easy," Tara murmured, reaching up with an exhausted hand to stroke the soft skin of Pam's neck. "It's just Sookie."

Pam tried to curb the almost feral protectiveness that Tara brought out in her but the fear of losing the young vampire was still too fresh, too recent for her to properly keep her emotions in check.

"Pamela." Eric motioned to the van that his sister had conveniently parked nearby, Jessica and Jason already sequestered inside.

Pam kept everyone within her line of sight as she carried Tara towards the van, pewter blue eyes warning everybody to keep their distance. When she reached the side of the van, she barely restrained the instinctive urge to backhand Jessica who all but leapt out, wrapping them both in a fierce and urgent hug, relief thundering through her so hard that her body quaked.

"Jessica, let them go," Eric's commanding tone floated over to the trio, worry tingeing the corners of his eyes as he watched Pam's face darken with barely concealed rage. When he saw the tips of his child's fangs peek out from her upper lip, he blurred over, pulling Jessica bodily away from the blonde. "Don't go near them for a while," he instructed the redhead.

"But..."

"Jessica, this isn't the time to argue," Eric barked impatiently. "Get in the van, take a seat _away_ from Pam and Tara and make sure Jason stays away from them too." He knew that while Pam exercised great restraint from staking the young redhead, she would absolutely have no qualms about ripping Jason's head from his shoulders should he make one move towards Tara.

If anyone thought Eric to be exaggerating, all they would have to do to seek confirmation was to look into Pam's eyes. Sapphire orbs were currently savage, almost luminous with rage as they glared at the rag-tag group of vampires, human and half-fairy. Pale fingers tightened minutely on their quarry, the blonde almost trembling with bloodlust even as she tried to angle Tara away from the people in front of her.

Jessica, mouth half open to allow a protest to fall from her lips, stopped cold when she saw the murderous look on Pam's face. The redhead gulped, Pam's wrath feeling like a thousand burning suns against her skin. She closed her mouth, nodded in surrender then disappeared inside of the van, making sure to pick a seat close to the front.

If Pam knew she was being irrational, she didn't show it, didn't care. A deep-seated feeling of protectiveness was currently embedded in her cells, telling her that Tara wasn't to be touched, to be approached. By anyone or anything. Pale arms smudged with blood drew the package in her arms closer to her stiff body, steel-blue eyes little more than narrowed slits and flat with warning as Pam froze where she stood, daring anyone to come closer.

When no more threats to Tara came, Pam waited until everybody was seated before she climbed in the van with Tara, swiftly bypassing Jessica, Sookie and Jason until she was at the back. She dropped into a seat, settling Tara between her thighs.

"You're scaring everyone," Tara mumbled incoherently, feeling her maker's anger, protectiveness and feral, rabid intensity to lay claim on what was hers blister a scorching path down the bond. She snuggled into Pam, the lack of blood, the coming of dawn and all that she went through rendering her body to absolute exhaustion. "Be calm."

"I'll be calm when we get the fuck out of here," Pam snapped. Then her expression softened when Tara sighed and nuzzled her cheek against her ruined corset, seemingly have no cognizance of her needy actions. She reached up, cupped the back of Tara's head then bent to press her lips into Tara's hair. "Sleep," she murmured. "I've got you."

"You promise?" There was a childlike quality in Tara's tone, her onyx stained eyes, though marred with exhaustion, trained onto deep pools of sapphire, seeking _needing_ to soak up the beautiful vision that was her maker.

"With all that I am," Pam replied quietly, pressing another kiss to the top of Tara's head, her fingers gently moving over the back of her progeny's neck in a soothing massage. "Sleep."

Tara fought against the pull of sleep for scant seconds, not wanting to look away from Pam just yet. But it was a losing battle, one the young vampire had no reserves left to fight. Giving in, Tara yawned, pressed closer to her maker then allowed darkness to creep across her vision and sleep to pull her under.

As the van pulled out of the Authority compound and Tara's end of the bond began trickling waves of contentment and peace into Pam, the blonde relaxed her shoulders, allowing herself to sink back against the seat. She held Tara to her, unable, unwilling to relinquish the contact. Blue eyes were contemplative, tired, as they wandered to the window, where the outside scenery was all but a blur as Eric sped down the road, urgency and anxiety in every jerk of the wheel.

Pam didn't know what was going to happen in the near future, didn't know exactly what happened in the Authority with regards to Bill but for now, she didn't care. In that very moment, holding her child in her arms, all that mattered to her was that Tara was safe. She was safe and alive and she was with Pam.

And for now, that was all that mattered.

**THE END**

* * *

**A/N 2** - * Quote is from Jeaniene Frost, author of the _Cat and Bones _book series. I tried to paraphrase but it ruined the effect and deep meaning of the quote so I decided to keep it intact instead. Just letting y'all know, the awesome quote is not mine but I thought it related to Pam and Tara pretty damn well.


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